Deaths more often deemed avoidable in adults with Down syndrome
Avoidable causes accounted for 47.0% of deaths among adults with Down syndrome and 44.9% with other intellectual disabilities, compared with 22.0% in England’s general population.
Our read
Populations- Studied:
- Cohort study of 3,381 adults with Down syndrome, against England’s general population
- What changed:
- Avoidable causes accounted for 47.0% of deaths among adults with Down syndrome, versus 22.0% in the general population
- The catch:
- Avoidability classifications cannot identify which individual deaths better care would have prevented
Editor of record: Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
Deaths among 3,381 adults with Down syndrome, 15,347 adults with other intellectual disabilities and 4,163,160 people in England’s general population were compared in a population-based retrospective cohort study. Researchers used mortality reviews and national statistics from 2016 to 2023.
Median ages at death were 59.5 years in the Down syndrome group and 63.8 years in the other intellectual disability group; 56.0% and 56.5%, respectively, were male. Both groups had a higher share of deaths classified as avoidable under international criteria than the general population. Treatable causes accounted for 28.7% of deaths among adults with Down syndrome, 25.1% among adults with other intellectual disabilities and 7.6% in the general population. Epilepsy and pneumonia were the leading treatable causes.
Why it matters
Down syndrome is the most common genetic cause of Alzheimer disease. The authors called for epilepsy reviews alongside dementia monitoring, pneumonia prevention and respiratory vaccination.
Caveats
Classifying causes as avoidable does not show which individual deaths a change in care would have prevented. The findings concern adults in England, not children.
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