Glossary:Competing causes

From Statistics Explained

Competing causes, The term competing causes is used in different ways. (1) Referring to: two or more causally unrelated, etiologically specific diseases listed in part I. This may be a source of error on the medical part of the death certificate (2) Referring to the fact that if a person is cured (and will not die) from one disease, (s)he is eligible to attract another fatal disease. It is possible by using multi-decrement (or causeelimination) life tables to investigate the impact on life expectancy if deaths from a particular cause were to be eliminated from a population. Life expectancy is not automatically improved however simply by releasing a population from the burden of a particular cause of death. Should a cause be removed, other causes will then ‘compete’ for the ‘space’ it leaves. The effect of ‘competing causes’ can be assessed through competing risk analysis.

Related concepts

• Cause of death

Statistical data

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