If you are 50 or older and you break your hip, you have a one in four chance of dying within five years. Break your back, and you have a one in six chance of dying that soon, says a McMaster University study.

Potentially modifiable post-fracture complications, including pneumonia and pressure ulcers, are associated with an increased risk of death among nursing home residents who have suffered a hip fracture, according to a new study conducted by scientists at the Institute for Aging Research at Hebrew SeniorLife.

Heart disease patients living in poorer areas of B.C. are up to twice as likely to die from chronic diseases than patients living in better-off areas, a University of British Columbia study has found.

Drug abuse accounts for a third of the deaths behind Scotland's higher mortality rate, according to a study published on bmj.com today.

LSU associate professor of sociology Troy C. Blanchard recently found that a community's religious environment – that is, the type of religious congregations within a locale – affects mortality rates, often in a positive manner. These results were published in the June issue of Social Forces, a leading journal in the field of sociology.

When it comes to injury-related deaths, the gap between black and white American youths is narrowing, according to a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

A study led by the University of South Florida sheds new light on obesity’s role in the black-white gap in infant mortality. While maternal obesity appears to have no impact on the early survival of infants born to white women, the situation is different for black women, researchers report in the June 2008 issue of the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.

High levels or persistent elevation of PCT in patients with severe pneumonia usually results in death. According to a study in Respirology published by Wiley-Blackwell, Procalcitonin (PCT) levels in patients are indicative of survival rates, proving to be a valuable prognostic factor of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS).

Fewer and fewer people are dying after being severely injured in an accident. As Professor Steffen Ruchholtz and his colleagues from Marburg University Hospital report in the current issue of Deutsches Дrzteblatt, the number of deaths in Germany sank continuously between 1999 and 2005, decreasing by 4.1% to 18.7%.

A new international study finds that introducing an increased intensity of chemotherapy in children with severe Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH) can reduce the mortality rate for this disorder by as much as 20 percent when the patient demonstrates a rapid response to such treatment.

Patients treated at top-rated hospitals nationwide are nearly one-third less likely to die, on average, than those admitted to all other hospitals, according to a study released today by HealthGrades, the leading independent healthcare ratings organization.

A Stanford scientist has spelled out for the first time the direct links between increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and increases in human mortality, using a state-of-the-art computer model of the atmosphere that incorporates scores of physical and chemical environmental processes.