Sentinel Amenable Mortality: A New Way to Assess the Quality of Healthcare by Examining Causes of Premature Death for Which Highly Efficacious Medical Interventions Are Available

Table 3

Classification of amenable causes of death according to Strategy 1 (literature review and empirical analysis), Strategy 2 (expert assessment), and the combined consensus.

Cause of death	Age	Strategy 1 Literature review and empirical analysis	Strategy 2 Expert assessment	Combined consensus for the two strategies Priority given to high- efficacy group in Strategy 1 and more than 85% in Strategy 2
Abdominal hernia	<75	G1 [7, 9, 29, 30]	100%	High efficacy
Appendix diseases	<75	G1 [7, 9, 29, 30]	100%	High efficacy
Maternal mortality	All	G1 [31–33]	100%	High efficacy
Perinatal mortality	-	G1/G2 [7, 9, 34–38]	100%	High efficacy
Cholecystitis/Cholelithiasis	<75	G1 [29, 30]	91%	High efficacy
Immunizable diseases	<75	G1 [29, 30]	91%	High efficacy
Asthma	5-49	G1 [7, 9, 12, 29, 30, 39, 40]	89%	High efficacy
Benign prostate hyperplasia	<75	G1 [29, 30]	89%	High efficacy
Peptic ulcers	<75	G1 [7, 9, 29, 30, 41–43]	89%	High efficacy
Pernicious anemia	<75	G1 [29, 30, 39]	89%	High efficacy
Thyroid diseases	<75	G1 [7, 9, 12, 29, 30, 39]	89%	High efficacy
Tuberculosis	<75	G2/G1 [44–50]	89%	Medium-low efficacy
Chronic rheumatic heart disease	<75	G2/G1 [7, 9, 29, 30, 51, 52]	67%	Medium-low efficacy
Diabetes mellitus	<50	G2/G1 [7, 9, 29, 30, 53–55]	67%	Medium-low efficacy
Hypertension	<75	G2/G1 [7, 9, 29, 30, 39, 56]	67%	Medium-low efficacy
Pneumonia, Acute Respiratory Infections and Influenza	<75	G2/G1 [29, 57–59]	67%	Medium-low efficacy
Congenital cardiovascular anomalies	<75	G2/G1 [29, 30, 51]	33%	Medium-low efficacy
Cervical cancer	15-74	G2/G1 [9, 60, 61]	22%	Medium-low efficacy
Skin cancer (melanoma and non-melanoma)	<75	G2 [29, 30, 60]	22%	Medium-low efficacy
Uterine cancer	15-74	G2 [7, 9, 29, 30]	22%	Medium-low efficacy
Cerebrovascular disease	<75	G2 [7, 9, 29, 30]	11%	Medium-lowefficacy
Testicular cancer	<75	G2/G1 [7, 9, 60, 62, 63]	11%	Medium-low efficacy
Hodgkin’s disease	<75	G2/G1 [7, 9, 60, 64, 65]	0%	Medium-low efficacy
Leukemia	<15	G2 [7, 9, 60, 66]	0%	Medium-low efficacy
Ischemic heart disease	35-75	G2 [7, 9, 29, 30, 67]	0%	Medium-low efficacy
Breast cancer (women)	<75	G2 [7, 9, 60, 68]	0%	Medium-low efficacy

G1: amenable causes with medical interventions of high efficacy; G2: amenable causes with medical interventions of medium-low efficacy; G1/G2 or G2/G1: uncertain level of efficacy but priority given to the first. Three-way categories were based exclusively on the literature review.
Percentage of professionals who classified each amenable cause of death as having an intervention belonging to the highest level of efficacy.