Association of impaired kidney function with mortality in rural Uganda: results of a general population cohort study

Objective To determine the association between baseline kidney function and subsequent all-cause mortality.Design and setting A general population-based cohort study from rural Uganda.Participants People aged 18 years and above with measured baseline estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), recruited from survey rounds in 2011–2012 or 2014–2015 and followed up to March 2019.Outcome measure The primary outcome was all-cause mortality, identified through reports from community health workers and verified by verbal autopsy. The association between baseline eGFR category and mortality was determined using multivariable Cox regression.Results Of 5812 participants in both rounds, we included 5678 (97.7%) participants with kidney function and mortality data; the median age was 36 years (IQR 24–50), 60.7% were female, 10.3% were hypertensive, 9.8% were HIV-positive and 1.5% were diabetic. During a median follow-up of 5.0 years (IQR 3.7–6.0) there were 140 deaths. In age-adjusted and sex-adjusted analyses, eGFR 90 mL/min/1.73 m2. After inclusion of additional confounders (HIV, body mass index, diabetes, hypertension, alcohol and smoking status) into the model, eGFR