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. 2024 Jul 25:12:1414515.
doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1414515. eCollection 2024.

Mortality trends in people with disabilities before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea, 2017-2022

Ye-Soon Kim  1 , Ju-Hee Kim  1 , Sooyoung Kwon  1 , Joo-Hee Kim  1 , Hyun-Ji Kim  1 , Seung Hee Ho  1
Affiliations

Mortality trends in people with disabilities before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea, 2017-2022

Ye-Soon Kim et al. Front Public Health. .

Abstract

Objective: To investigate temporal trends in mortality rates and underlying causes of death in persons with disabilities before and during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Methods: Annual mortality rates and causes of death were analyzed using data covering the 2017-2022 period.

Results: The mortality rate among people with disabilities increased from 2017 to 2022; the rate was five times higher during COVID-19 in this population than in the general population. When analyzing the cause of death, the incidence of infectious diseases and tuberculosis decreased after COVID-19. In contrast, the incidence of other bacillary disorders (A30-A49) increased. The incidence of respiratory system diseases (J00-J99), influenza and pneumonia (J09-J18), and other acute lower respiratory infections (J20-J22) decreased before COVID-19, while the incidence of lung diseases due to external agents (J60-J70), other respiratory diseases principally affecting the interstitium (J80-J84), and other diseases of the pleura (J90-J94) increased during the pandemic. The risk of COVID-19 death among people with disabilities was 1.1-fold higher for female patients (95% CI = 1.06-1.142), 1.41-fold for patients aged 70 years and older (95% CI = 1.09-1.82), and 1.24-fold higher for people with severe disabilities (95% CI = 1.19-1.28).

Conclusions: The mortality rate in people with disabilities significantly increased during COVID-19, compared with that before the pandemic. People with disabilities had a higher mortality rate during COVID-19 compared with the general population. Risk factors must be reduced to prevent high mortality rates in this population.

Keywords: COVID-19; South Korea; infection; mortality; people with disability.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Mortality trends among people with and without disabilities before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. PwD, People with disabilities; GP, General population; COVID-19, coronavirus disease 2019.
Figure 2
Figure 2
COVID-19 specific death rate trends among people with and without disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19, coronavirus disease 2019; PwD, People with disabilities; GP, General population.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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