Publication date: Dec 10, 2025
Studies have shown COVID-19 pandemic led to excess mortality globally. However, reports on specific leading causes of death are limited. This study used statewide data to evaluate excess cancer-related death by comparing the expected and observed cancer-related deaths during the first two years of pandemic. 2015-2021 Nevada statewide death certificates and Nevada State Demographer’s population data were analyzed. We evaluated three outcomes of cancer mortality: cancer as the underlying cause of death, cancer as a contributing cause of death, and a combination of both. Causes of death were determined and provided by the NCHS (ICD-10, 2019 version). Negative binomial regressions were used to model cancer deaths to compare the baseline prior to COVID-19 (2015-2019) with the COVID-19 pandemic period (2020-2021). Observed to expected (O/E) ratios and corresponding confidence intervals were calculated. During 2020-2021, overall cancer-related deaths, combining underlying and contributing causes of death, were 208 cases lower than expected (O/E = 0. 98; 95% CI: 0. 96-1. 00; p = 0. 053), with a notably reduced mortality for respiratory system cancers (O/E = 0. 86; 95% CI: 0. 83-0. 90; adjusted p
Open Access PDF
| Concepts | Keywords |
|---|---|
| Cancers | Cancer |
| Demographer | COVID-19 |
| Discov | Excess death |
| Mortality | |
| Nevada |
Semantics
| Type | Source | Name |
|---|---|---|
| disease | MESH | cancer |
| disease | MESH | COVID-19 pandemic |
| disease | MESH | death |
| disease | MESH | ICD |
| pathway | REACTOME | Reproduction |
| disease | MESH | included |