The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Lethality

in medical statistics, the ratio of the number of deaths from a disease, injury, or circumstance to the number suffering from the disease, injury, or circumstance, expressed in percent and calculated for a given period of time (usually a year).

The following types of lethality are distinguished: hospital lethality, the ratio of the number of persons who die in a hospital from a given disease to the number hospitalized with the disease; extrahospital lethality, the ratio of the number of persons who die from a disease to the number suffering from the disease and treated outside of a hospital; and total lethality, the ratio of the number of persons who die from a disease to the total number affected with the same disease, in and outside of the hospital.

Lethality is one of the criteria of the efficacy of therapeutic agents, methods of treatment, and medical institutions (promptness of medical care, start of therapy, duration and character of hospitalization, availability of surgical treatment, quality of care).

Lethality should not be confused with mortality, which refers to the rate of death in a population.

G. N. SOBOLEVSKII

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References in periodicals archive

(3) These outcomes may be underreported, but they are consistent with the mathematical model predicting that medications with a higher relative lethality will have higher morbidity and mortality outcomes, regardless of a patient's intent to overdose.

Decreasing suicide risk with math

Most notably, mnemonic devices are typically used to help hotline workers and counselors assess suicide risk factors and in turn assess suicide lethality. According to Granello and Granello (2007) some of the most basic mnemonic devices for assessing suicidality include:

Validation of the SIMPLE STEPS model of suicide assessment

Individual vessel lethality = ASCM's strike-mile x vessel's ASCM load

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Throughout the 28-year epidemic, the AIDS lethality rate in the studied population was 41.4%.

Transitioning through AIDS epidemics--gender and temporality

Under this award, Teledyne will provide test execution, lethality development and validation, analyses, flight and ground test data collection, live fire test and evaluation, and missile integration and flight testing for missile defence weapon systems.

Teledyne's subsidiary awarded USD67.4m US Army task order

Steel shot is lighter than traditional lead--7.8 grams per cubic centimeter (gr/cc) for steel versus 10.9 to 11.1 gr/cc for lead--and the only way to make steel perform with the lethality necessary to consistently bag ducks and geese was to make it faster.

Blind speed: Winchester's high-velocity load is a long-range duck killer

The team surveyed patients admitted to the university's level 1 trauma center in Jackson within 24 hours of a suicide attempt and found no statistical difference in demographics, medical lethality, suicide intent, or problematic alcohol use between 62 patients with borderline features and 28 without them.

Don't discount suicide attempts in patients with borderline

There was no validating statistical for association between the lesion site, recurrence and lethality rate.

Oral squamous cell carcinoma: survival, recurrence and death/Carcinoma de celulas escamosas da boca: sobrevida, recidiva e obitos

The round more than doubles the lethality of the current 40mm grenade against defilade targets.

Enhanced grenade lethality: on target even when the enemy is concealed

Ditch the full metal jackets and place expanding bullets in the vitals of even deer-sized game and its lethality will shock you.

Best coyote caliber: Joseph von Benedikt and David Faubion battle to determine the best fur-thumper in the land