Devising PoPStat: A Metric Bridging Population Pyramids with Global Disease Mortality

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Fonseka, Tharaka, Wijenayake, Buddhi, Ratnayake, Athulya, Alwis, Inosha, Manathunga, Supun, Godaliyadda, Roshan, Dharmarathne, Samath, Herath, Vijitha, Ekanayake, Parakrama, Pamuditha, Isuru
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Fonseka, Tharaka
Wijenayake, Buddhi
Ratnayake, Athulya
Alwis, Inosha
Manathunga, Supun
Godaliyadda, Roshan
Dharmarathne, Samath
Herath, Vijitha
Ekanayake, Parakrama
Pamuditha, Isuru
author_facet Fonseka, Tharaka
Wijenayake, Buddhi
Ratnayake, Athulya
Alwis, Inosha
Manathunga, Supun
Godaliyadda, Roshan
Dharmarathne, Samath
Herath, Vijitha
Ekanayake, Parakrama
Pamuditha, Isuru
contents Understanding the relationship between population dynamics and disease-specific mortality is central to evidence-based health policy. This study introduces two novel metrics, PoPDivergence and PoPStat, one to quantify the difference between population pyramids and the other to assess the strength and nature of their association with the mortality of a given disease. PoPDivergence, based on Kullback-Leibler divergence, measures deviations between a countrys population pyramid and a reference pyramid. PoPStat is the correlation between these deviations and the log form of disease-specific mortality rates. The reference population is selected by a brute-force optimization that maximizes this correlation. Utilizing mortality data from the Global Burden of Disease 2021 and population statistics from the United Nations, we applied these metrics to 371 diseases across 204 countries. Results reveal that PoPStat outperforms traditional indicators such as median age, GDP per capita, and Human Development Index in explaining the mortality of most diseases. Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) like neurological disorders and cancers, communicable diseases (CDs) like neglected tropical diseases, and maternal and neonatal diseases were tightly bound to the underlying demographic attributes whereas NCDs like diabetes, CDs like respiratory infections and injuries including self-harm and interpersonal violence were weakly associated with population pyramid shapes. Notably, except for diabetes, the NCD mortality burden was shared by constrictive population pyramids, while mortality of communicable diseases, maternal and neonatal causes and injuries were largely borne by expansive pyramids. Therefore, PoPStat provides insights into demographic determinants of health and empirical support for models on epidemiological transition. Code and scripts: https://github.com/Buddhi19/DevisingPoPStat.git
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publishDate 2025
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spellingShingle Devising PoPStat: A Metric Bridging Population Pyramids with Global Disease Mortality
Fonseka, Tharaka
Wijenayake, Buddhi
Ratnayake, Athulya
Alwis, Inosha
Manathunga, Supun
Godaliyadda, Roshan
Dharmarathne, Samath
Herath, Vijitha
Ekanayake, Parakrama
Pamuditha, Isuru
Applications
Understanding the relationship between population dynamics and disease-specific mortality is central to evidence-based health policy. This study introduces two novel metrics, PoPDivergence and PoPStat, one to quantify the difference between population pyramids and the other to assess the strength and nature of their association with the mortality of a given disease. PoPDivergence, based on Kullback-Leibler divergence, measures deviations between a countrys population pyramid and a reference pyramid. PoPStat is the correlation between these deviations and the log form of disease-specific mortality rates. The reference population is selected by a brute-force optimization that maximizes this correlation. Utilizing mortality data from the Global Burden of Disease 2021 and population statistics from the United Nations, we applied these metrics to 371 diseases across 204 countries. Results reveal that PoPStat outperforms traditional indicators such as median age, GDP per capita, and Human Development Index in explaining the mortality of most diseases. Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) like neurological disorders and cancers, communicable diseases (CDs) like neglected tropical diseases, and maternal and neonatal diseases were tightly bound to the underlying demographic attributes whereas NCDs like diabetes, CDs like respiratory infections and injuries including self-harm and interpersonal violence were weakly associated with population pyramid shapes. Notably, except for diabetes, the NCD mortality burden was shared by constrictive population pyramids, while mortality of communicable diseases, maternal and neonatal causes and injuries were largely borne by expansive pyramids. Therefore, PoPStat provides insights into demographic determinants of health and empirical support for models on epidemiological transition. Code and scripts: https://github.com/Buddhi19/DevisingPoPStat.git
title Devising PoPStat: A Metric Bridging Population Pyramids with Global Disease Mortality
topic Applications
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.11514