Morbidity refers to an illness or disease.
Mortality refers to death.
Both are used by scientists to determine health statistics likedisease incidenceandall-cause mortality rates.
Verywell / Hugo Lin
Morbidity and mortality are closely linked.
This article explains the difference between morbidity and mortality.
It also takes a look at ways to prevent morbidities and protect your long-term health.
What Is Morbidity?
Morbidity is thestate of having an illness or medical condition, either mental or physical.
Such issues can progress over time and gradually affect a person’s health and quality of life.
Examples of Morbidities
Verywell / Hugo Lin
Examples of morbidities include:
What Is Comorbidity?
Comorbidity means that a person hasmore than one illness at the same time.
On the flip side, managing one comorbid condition can often have a positive effect on the other.
What Is Mortality?
Mortality isanother term for death.
Mortality ratesdescribe the incidence of deaths among a specific population over a specific time.
In national studies, it is typically described as the number of cases per 100,000.
(In smaller studies, the mortality rate may be described as deaths per 1,000 or 10,000.)
When an event or a disease causes more deaths than expected, it is calledexcess mortality.
COVID-19 is one such example.
The 2020 pandemic caused 50% more deaths than were expected over that period of time.
Morbidity can also drop when people are provided health education and adequate healthcare.
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