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Men are the majority of all excess deaths
01/05/20 .
News
We already know men make up the majority of Covid-19 deaths. New analysis by the Forum suggests that men are also the majority (59%) of other excess deaths during this period.
Over the first three weeks of April 2020, the total number of deaths recorded by the ONS for England and Wales was 57,254. This was 25,932 deaths higher than the average for this period over the previous five years. Usually there are about 10,000 deaths a week in April. For April 2020, there were over 16,000 in the first week, over 18,000 in the second week and over 22,000 in the third.
Of these additional deaths 18,446 were attributed to Covid-19. But that leaves about 7,500 excess deaths unexplained. These could be Covid-19 deaths which don't mention it on the death certificate, perhaps because no test was done or some other reason. Or it could be linked to lower usage of health services for other conditions (that is people who in previous years might have sought medical help either not seeking it or not getting it because of Covid-19). There may be some other reason. But whatever the reason, 59% of these extra deaths were men.
We already know men make up 60% of Covid-19 deaths in England and Wales - a remarkably similar figure which may suggest many of these excess deaths are, indeed, down to unrecorded Covid-19.
Men's Health Forum CEO Martin Tod said:
It is striking that 59% of excess deaths which do not mention Coronavirus on the death certificate since the crisis began are also amongst men.
While this could relate to under-reporting of COVID-19 deaths, it could also be linked to lower usage of health services for other conditions. A full equalities analysis of this shortfall needs to be conducted with urgency.
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The Men’s Health Forum need your support It’s tough for men to ask for help but if you don’t ask when you need it, things generally only get worse. So we’re asking. In the UK, one man in five dies before the age of 65. If we had health policies and services that better reflected the needs of the whole population, it might not be like that. But it is. Policies and services and indeed men have been like this for a long time and they don’t change overnight just because we want them to. It’s true that the UK’s men don’t have it bad compared to some other groups. We’re not asking you to ‘feel sorry’ for men or put them first. We’re talking here about something more complicated, something that falls outside the traditional charity fund-raising model of ‘doing something for those less fortunate than ourselves’. That model raises money but it seldom changes much. We’re talking about changing the way we look at the world. There is nothing inevitable about premature male death. Services accessible to all, a population better informed. These would benefit everyone - rich and poor, young and old, male and female - and that’s what we’re campaigning for. We’re not asking you to look at images of pity, we’re just asking you to look around at the society you live in, at the men you know and at the families with sons, fathers and grandads missing. Here’s our fund-raising page - please chip in if you can.
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