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Meta-Analysis
. 2020 Nov:141:59-62.
doi: 10.1016/j.maturitas.2020.06.017. Epub 2020 Jun 23.

Coronavirus disease 2019 and gender-related mortality in European countries: A meta-analysis

Faustino R Pérez-López  1 , Mauricio Tajada  2 , Ricardo Savirón-Cornudella  3 , Manuel Sánchez-Prieto  4 , Peter Chedraui  5 , Enrique Terán  6
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Coronavirus disease 2019 and gender-related mortality in European countries: A meta-analysis

Faustino R Pérez-López et al. Maturitas. 2020 Nov.

Abstract

Objective: To examine mortality rates related to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) by gender among European countries.

Methods: PubMed, preprint medRxiv and bioRxiv repositories, and Google were searched for the terms COVID-19, mortality rates, gender, and Europe. Only Google provided a website with appropriate information. COVID-19 cases and deaths from European countries were extracted by gender from the Global Health 50/50 repository up to May 23, 2020. Extracted data included country, the total number of COVID-19 cases and the number of related deaths by gender. Random effects models with the inverse variance method were used for meta-analyses. Results are reported as death risk ratios (RRs).

Results: We identified information from 23 European countries that reported separately by gender mortality rates related to COVID-19. The sample comprised 484,919 men and 605,229 women positive for COVID-19. The mortality rate was significantly higher in men than in women (risk ratio = 1.60, 95 % confidence interval [CI] 1.53, 1.68). The trend was similar when countries reporting < 5000, or < 10,000 cases were excluded from the analysis (RR = 1.60, 95 % CI 1.52, 1.69 and RR = 1.68; CI 1.62, 1.76, respectively).

Conclusion: In Europe, the new zoonotic coronavirus causes significantly more deaths in men than in women.

Keywords: COVID-19; Coronavirus 2019; Fatalities; Gender; Global health 50/50; Mortality; SARS-CoV-2.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Risk ratio and 95 % confidence intervals of COVID-19 related deaths reported in 23 European countries: Comparison men versus women.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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