ORIGINAL ARTICLE Open Access The Burden of Premature Mortality in Hamadan Province in 2006 and 2010 Using Standard Expected Years of Potential Life Lost: A Population-based Study

OBJECTIVES: Examining the premature death rate represents the first step in estimating the overall burden of disease, reflecting a full picture of how different causes affect population health and providing a way of mon-itoring and evaluating population health. The present study was conducted to assess the burden of premature mortality in Hamadan Province, Iran in 2006 and 2010. METHODS: To calculate years of potential life lost (YPLL), the dataset was categorized into 5-year age groups based on each person’s age at death. Then the age groups were subtracted from the relevant age-based life ta-ble produced by the World Health Organization in 2009. The YPLL for each individual were then added to-gether to yield the total YPLL for all individuals in the population who died in a particular year. Finally, we calculated the YPLL for all sex-, age-, and cause-specific mortality rates and reported them as percentages. RESULTS: We analyzed 18,786 deaths, 9,127 of which occurred in 2006 and 9,659 in 2010. Mortality rates were higher in men than women for all age groups both in 2006 and 2010. In addition, age-specific mortality rates in both genders for all age groups were higher in 2010 than in 2006. The percentage of YPLL from isch-emic heart diseases, cerebrovascular diseases, transport accidents, and intentional self-harm were among the greatest sources of premature death. CONCLUSION: The results of the present survey indicate that the eight major causes of premature death i