Reporting of deaths from external causes and violence against older people: a veiled reality

Abstract

Objective: To describe the morbidity and mortality profiles of violence against older people. Methods: This is a descriptive and retrospective study of 14,900 reports made to the Notifiable Disease Information System and 18,228 reports to the Mortality Information System from 2012 to 2017 in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Reports of violence were analyzed considering characteristics of the victim (sex, age group, race/color and education) and violence (place of occurrence, type of violence, characteristics of the perpetrator) and death-related variables (sex, age group, race/color, marital status, place of occurrence and cause of death). Results: 54.5% (8,116) of the reports referred to women, 42.8% (6,384) to white victims and 47.6% (7,082) to victims who were either illiterate or had not completed primary education. Physical violence accounted for 69.5% (10,356) of the cases and children were the main perpetrators, representing 26.4% (3,928) of the cases. 60.9% (11,096) of the reports of death from external causes referred to men, 37.4% (6,815) to people over 80 years old, 54.9% (10,011) to white people and 37.7% (6,867) to married people. The hospital was the place where most of the deaths occurred, representing 64% (11,664) of the cases. Deaths from other external causes were: 42.5% (7,741), with falls accounting for 32.4% (5,897) of the total. Conclusion: The main victims were older women with poor education and who experienced physical violence perpetrated by the child. However, deaths were more common among older men and were mainly caused by falls and other transport accidents.