Elderly people may be at particular risk of Zn deficiency due to an increased prevalence of malnutrition. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the Zn status in community-living elderly people at risk of malnutrition.

Cross-sectional population-based survey. Individuals at risk of malnutrition were identified by the Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool. Zn status was assessed by measuring serum Zn. Logistic regression was performed to evaluate the association between the risk of malnutrition and Zn deficiency.

Municipality of Tromsø, Norway.

Random sample of 743 men and 778 women aged 65–87 years.

Zn deficiency was found in 10·1 % of the participants, including 13·1 % of the men and 7·3 % of the women. Among the men and women at risk of malnutrition, 31·0 % and 12·7 %, respectively, had Zn deficiency. In a model adjusted for age, gender, serum albumin and smoking status, Zn deficiency was positively associated with the risk of malnutrition (OR=2·2; 95 % CI 1·3, 3·6).

Overall, Zn deficiency was found in one out of ten community-living elderly people and was associated with the risk of malnutrition. Our results encourage the assessment of Zn status in elderly people at risk of malnutrition, with a special emphasis on elderly men.

Since the late 1970s, the psychiatric service system in Norway has been changed gradually according to the principles of deinstitutionalisation.

To document the mortality of psychiatric patients in a deinstitutionalised service system.

The case register of a psychiatric hospital covering the period 1980–1992 was linked to the Central Register of Deaths. Age-adjusted death rates and standardised mortality ratios (SMRs) were computed.

Patients with organic psychiatric disorders had significantly higher mortality regardless of cause of death. SMRs ranged from 0.9 for death by cancer in women to 36.3 for suicide in men. For unnatural death, SMRs were highest in the first year after discharge. Compared to the periods 1950–1962 and 1963–1974, there has been an increase in SMRs for cardiovascular death and suicide in both genders.

Deinstitutionalisation seems to have had as its cost a relative rise both in cardiovascular death and unnatural deaths for both genders, but most pronounced in men.

The aim was to document the mortality of psychiatric patients within a service system characterised by a low beds-to-population ratio.

All patients admitted to one psychiatric hospital were followed from date of first admission after 31 July 1980 until 31 December 1992 with regard to death, by linkage to the Norwegian Central Register of Persons. Age-adjusted total mortality rates and standardised mortality ratios (SMRs) compared with the general population were computed.

Mortality rates were highest in men, and increased with age in both sexes. SMRs were highest in the younger age-groups, and the overall SMR was significantly higher for men than for women. Mortality was highest during the first year after admission for both sexes and was higher than in the general population in all diagnostic groups.

The mortality of psychiatric patients is still unsatisfactorily high, and men constitute a special high-risk group.