New Delhi, India, in March 2020, a curfew was imposed as a preventive measure against covid-19
Yawar Nazir/Getty Images
The COVID-19 pandemic may have had a more severe effect on India than previously estimated, with the life expectancy of women, certain social groups and young demographics experiencing the most severe declines.
Previous mortality estimates during the COVID-19 pandemic in India were based on official death records. However, confinements have altered this system, which already underestimated the deaths of women and young people even before the pandemic. It also does not collect secure data such as caste. or ethnicity, says Sangita Vyas of Hunter College in New York.
So Vyas and his colleagues accumulated data on deaths in India from the National Family Health Survey. This national survey asks participants if a family member has died in the last 4 years and, if so, they provide data such as the date of death. , age and sex of the user, adding functions for men and women.
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The researchers analyzed the knowledge of more than 765,000 participants who responded to the survey in 2021. They found that deaths in 2020 were about 17% higher than in 2019. If there were increases across the country, it would indicate about 1. 2 million more deaths in 2020 — 8 times the official number of covid-19 deaths in India in 2020 and 1. 5 times the World Health Organization’s estimates, according to the study.
Between 2019 and 2020, overall life expectancy at birth declined by more than 2. 5 years in the sample, to a decline of 1. 5 years in the United States over the same period. The evolution of life expectancy also differs according to sex, age and social group. .
For example, it decreased in about 3 years in women, compared to just over two years in men. This contrasts with global trends, which show that men have experienced a greater increase in mortality than women during the Covid-19 pandemic. Exclusionary trends in India can probably be explained, at least in part, by gender inequality,” says Vyas.
Previous studies show that Indian families spend less on physical care for women than for men. It’s possible that the pandemic has simply amplified those pre-existing disparities, explains Ridhi Kashyap of the University of Oxford, a co-author of the study. Strict lockdowns have also hampered access to maternal healthcare, which could increase maternal mortality rates, he says.
Unlike in other countries, the declines in life expectancy seen in this study were largely due to the deaths of young people. Rising mortality among women and women under 20 contributed about a year to the decline in life expectancy in 2020 — about the same amount as deaths among women between 60 and 79 years of age.
“We believe that these increases in mortality are due to the indirect effects of the lockdown in India,” says Vyas. The effects may simply come from a disruption in access to vaccines and remedies for tuberculosis, which is a leading cause of death. in India.
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There are also marked differences between social groups. Upper-caste Hindus experienced a 1. 3-year decrease in life expectancy, while Muslims or lower-castes experienced a decrease of 5. 4 years and 2. 7 years, respectively.
Public fitness experts have long been aware of fitness inequalities in India, but those findings highlight the magnitude of those disparities, Vyas says. “It’s vital to see how other populations are affected to scale up policy responses,” she says.
However, the study had limitations. Due to lockdown disruptions, respondents came from only 14 of India’s 36 states and union territories, and the pattern was demographically representative of only about a quarter of India’s population. In addition, the study did not read about the cause of death. “We can only speculate about the reasons for these trends,” Kashyap says. “But we can’t say for sure what the cause is. “
Magazine reference:
Scientific Advances DOI: 10. 1126/sciadv. adk2070