Mortality of people with intellectual disabilities during the 2017/2018 influenza epidemic in the Netherlands: potential implications for the COVID-19 pandemic.
M Cuypers, B W M Schalk, M C J Koks-Leensen and 4 others
PMID 32458565WHAT IT FOUND
During the 2017/2018 influenza epidemic, deaths rose 15.2% among Dutch adults with intellectual disabilities versus 5.4% in the general population.
Excess deaths were not only respiratory; diabetes and Down syndrome contributed. ID should not be assumed low risk.
Key findings
01During the 2017/2018 influenza epidemic, mortality increased by 15.2% among Dutch adults with intellectual disabilities and by 5.4% in the general population cohort compared with baseline.
02In the intellectual disability cohort, excess mortality was higher among men (excess 29.7 per 10 000 person-years, +19.5%) than among women (excess 18.9 per 10 000 person-years, +10.6%).
03The highest contribution to excess deaths in the intellectual disability cohort was from congenital and chromosomal abnormalities (+39.1%), with other excess deaths from mental and behavioural disorders (+31.7%), respiratory problems (+19.4%), and endocrine diseases (+74.4%).
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The study used register data, so it did not record intellectual disability diagnosis details or severity. It also had no information on comorbidities such as diabetes or dementia. Cause of death depended on reporting quality, and labels such as intellectual disability or Down syndrome may not show the true causal pathway. Some results were aggregated because small numbers could create privacy risks. The epidemic was influenza, not COVID-19, and its vaccine, weather, and control measures were different.
Declared interests
No author conflicts of interest statement is included in the supplied text. The work used non-public microdata from Statistics Netherlands, and the article is classified as research support, non-U.S. government.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the higher excess mortality as proof that intellectual disability itself caused the deaths or that any specific therapy would prevent them. The study had no data on disability severity or comorbidities, and cause-of-death reporting was imperfect.