Avoidable mortality is a major public health concern but there has been little consensus among researchers on how it should be defined and reported. In this article two definitions of avoidable mortality are considered. These are used to present trends in avoidable deaths in England and Wales from 1993 to 2005, using two statistical indicators of mortality. Analysis of both definitions shows a ...

BACKGROUND Recent avoidable mortality trends in Australia suggest that health care has made a substantial contribution to reducing mortality. This study investigates if the benefits of health care have been distributed equally by comparing declines in avoidable with non-avoidable mortality over time by socioeconomic status (SES). METHODS We calculated avoidable and non-avoidable mortality rat...

STUDY OBJECTIVE The study aimed to analyse avoidable mortality in Lithuania as an index of the quality of health care and to assess trends in avoidable mortality from 1970-90. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS All deaths of Lithuanian residents aged between 0 and 64 years between 1970 and 1990 were analysed. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS Twenty seven per cent of all deaths in this age group were avo...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the primary diagnoses and patterns of 30 day readmissions and potentially avoidable readmissions in medical patients with each of the most common comorbidities. DESIGN Retrospective cohort study. SETTING Academic tertiary medical centre in Boston, 2009-10. PARTICIPANTS 10,731 consecutive adult discharges from a medical department. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Primary read...

BACKGROUND The quality of the healthcare system and its role in influencing mortality of migrant groups can be explored by examining ethnic variations in 'avoidable' mortality. This study investigates the association between the level of mortality from 'avoidable' causes and ethnic origin in the Netherlands and identifies social factors that contribute to this association. METHODS Data were o...