Investigating the Trend of Mortality, Life Expectancy and Excessive Death with Emphasis on the Role of the COVID-19 Pandemic Period in the Isfahan Province: A Cross-sectional Study of Join Point Regression Analysis 2011-2021.

Background: Comparing the trends of mortality rates provides valuable insight for policy discussions and promotes awareness of health issues. This study aimed to investigate the changes in mortality rate and life expectancy from 2011 to 2021 and the effect of COVID-19 period on these indices.

Methods: We investigated the data of all-cause deaths between 2011 and 2021 by age group, sex and year using Excel spreadsheets from the National Organization for Civil Registration (NOCR), via collected the census method. Joinpoint regression was used to calculate the trend of mortality rate during the study period.

Results: During the study period, there were 262,708 deaths, of which 148,919 were men (56.68%). The trend of mortality rate in both sexes has been increasing. Life expectancy in men and women decreased from 76.71 and 80.82 in 2011 to 74.43 and 77.53 in 2021, respectively. From 2018 to 2021, there was a significant increase in standardized mortality rate in men (APC=14.74; 95% CI=5.73; 28.65) and women (APC=14.29; 95% CI=4.67; 28.97). However, from 2011 to 2018, we observed a yearly 2.65% decreasing trend in men which was statistically significant (APC=-2.95, 95% CI=-7.67, -0.84). In women, no significant trend was seen.

Conclusion: With the emergence of the COVID-19 epidemic in 2019, the trend of mortality rate and life expectancy changed completely, with additional deaths and decreasing life expectancy. Therefore, prevention, control and treatment of epidemic diseases should be a serious concern of policy makers.