Recent diabetes-related mortality trends in Romania

As there are no published articles on country-level diabetes-related mortality in Romania, we aimed to investigate this aspect for the 1998-2015 period.

Anonymized demographic and diabetes-related mortality data (underlying or first secondary cause of death) were retrospectively obtained from the National Institute of Statistics/Eurostat microdata. Age-standardized mortality rates (ASMR) and their annual percentage change (APC) were analysed.

During 1998-2015, 4,567,899 persons died in Romania, among whom, diabetes was responsible for 168,854 cases. The ASMR for diabetes was 39.34 per 100,000 person-years (p-y) (95% CI 39.32-39.35). There was an increase in ASMR from 27.10 per 100,000 p-y (95% CI 27.01-27.19) in women and 30.88 per 100,000 p-y (95% CI 30.77-30.99) in men in 1998 to 35.42 per 100,000 p-y (95% CI 35.34-35.51) in women and 48.41 per 100,000 p-y (95% CI 48.29-48.52) in men, in 2015. The mean APC in women was 3.8% per year (95% CI 3.5-4.0, p < 0.001) during 1998-2010 and - 1.9% per year (95% CI - 2.7 to - 1.1, p < 0.001) during 2010-2015. The mean APC in men was 5.3% per year (95% CI 5.0-5.5, p < 0.001) during 1998-2010 and - 1.5% per year (95% CI - 2.2 to - 0.8, p < 0.001) during 2010-2015. Diabetes-related mortality rates increased with age, with men experiencing higher mortality rates than women for most age groups and calendar years.

Diabetes-related mortality rates increased significantly in Romania during 1998-2010, followed by a steady decline during 2010-2015.