Morbidity vs. Mortality

Morbidity refers to the unhealthy state of an individual, while mortality refers to the state of being mortal situation where people in a population are dying because of a disease. Morbidity is a measure of sickness or disease within a geographic area while Mortality is a measure of deaths within a population or geographic area. Mortality is being susceptible to death while morbidity is having diseases to cause death later on.

What is Morbidity?

Morbidity is a state of having poor health or a disease because of any reason. Whenever a person is afflicted with a disease to a level that it affects his health, the word morbidity is used by doctors. In this connection, comorbidity is a term used by medical fraternity to refer to an instance where a person is suffering from two or more diseases at the same instant. Morbidity rate is referred to the rate of incidence of a disease or the prevalence of the disease in a certain population. This term should not be confused with mortality rate.

What is Mortality?

Mortality is not a word used in general but is used only to refer to a situation where people in a population are dying because of a disease. Mortality rate describes the number of people dying because of a disease in a population. It is expressed in terms of number of deaths per thousand people in a year.

Key Differences between Morbidity and Mortality

  1. Morbidity is a state of being afflicted by a disease. It is a term that doctors use to refer to an unhealthy person who is suffering from disease. Mortality refers to the susceptibility of human beings to die.
  2. Morbidity is the quality of being sick or unhealthy while mortality is the condition of being mortal and of dying.
  3. Morbidity is a cause of mortality in a population although not all people who get sick die.
  4. Morbidity is measured by ICU scoring systems while mortality is measured by the number of deaths per thousand people.
  5. The morbidity rate is taken according to age, gender, area, and type of disease while there are several types of mortality rates; infant, perinatal, child, maternal, crude, standardized, and age-specific.
  6. Morbidity is a measure of sickness or disease within a geographic area while Mortality is a measure of deaths within a population or geographic area.
  7. Mortality is being susceptible to death while morbidity is having diseases to cause death later on.
  8. Morbidity scores or predicted morbidity are assigned to ill patients with the help of systems such as the APACHE II, SAPS II and III, Glasgow Coma scale, PIM2, and SOFA. Mortality rates are generally expressed as the number of deaths per 1000 individuals per year.

Video Explanation

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