ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2020
Tracking the reach of COVID-19 kin loss with a bereavement multiplier applied to the United States.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 131 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
131 citing papers in PubMed.
- Writing about the disrupted self: a randomized controlled trial of a structured online expressive writing intervention for bereaved Chinese adults.BMC palliative care · 2026Trial
- Iyengar yoga and health education interventions for prolonged grief disorder in later life: feasibility of a randomized controlled pilot trial.Scientific reports · 2025Trial
- Risk for Complicated Grief After the COVID-19 Death of a Marital Partner in Late Life.The American journal of geriatric psychiatry : official journal of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry · 2024Trial
- Disrupted Large-Scale Brain Network Connectivity in Prolonged Grief Disorder: Relationship With Grief-Related Avoidance, Yearning, and Intrusive Thoughts.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2026Article
- Detecting risk for depression and anxiety symptoms among older bereaved women using text-based analysis in the Nurses' Health Study II.American journal of epidemiology · 2026Article
- Social connection and cognitive health: A review of concepts, measures, and research priorities.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2026Review
- Depression Symptoms and Trauma Coping Self-Efficacy: A Longitudinal Examination of Couples During COVID-19 Pandemic.Journal of marital and family therapy · 2026Article
- Grieving Process During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Development and Preliminary Findings of a Group Intervention Based on Cognitive-Narrative Theory.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Prolonged grief disorder in later life: advancing our understanding of biopsychosocial mechanisms to guide future personalized interventions.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Review
- Learning the hard way: What COVID-19 teaches us about the social determinants of mental health among the urban poor.BMC public health · 2026Article
- The Future Availability of Family Caregivers: Implications for Late-Life Care Gaps.Population research and policy review · 2026Article
- Mental illness after bereavement before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden: A matched cohort study.PLOS mental health · 2026Article
- Providers of and participants in suicide assistance in Germany: A field description based on expert interviews.PloS one · 2026Article
- Bereavement service deserts: A 2024 statewide assessment of bereavement services.Death studies · 2025Article
- Article
- Acceptability and feasibility of an internet-based intervention for bereaved Chinese with prolonged grief: a mixed methods study.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2025Article
- The new sociology of bereavement.Annual review of sociology · 2025Article
- Measuring premature and cumulative family member bereavement: Racial disparities and later mortality risk.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Mindfulness and Relaxation Interventions Reduce Depression, Negative Affect and Stress in Widow(er)s.Journal of loss & trauma · 2025Article
- Kinship Structures for Left Behind Older Adults in High Outmigration Contexts: Evidence From Puerto Rico.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2025Article
71 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to a large increase in mortality in the United States and around the world, leaving many grieving the sudden loss of family members. We created an indicator-the COVID-19 bereavement multiplier-that estimates the average number of individuals who will experience the death of a close relative (defined as a grandparent, parent, sibling, spouse, or child) for each COVID-19 death. Using demographic microsimulation-based estimates of kinship networks in the United States, the clear age gradient in COVID-19 mortality seen across contexts, and several hypothetical infection prevalence scenarios, we estimate COVID-19 bereavement multipliers for White and Black individuals in the United States. Our analysis shows that for every COVID-19 death, approximately nine surviving Americans will lose a grandparent, parent, sibling, spouse, or child. These estimates imply, for example, that if 190,000 Americans die from COVID-19, as some models project, then ∼1.7 million will experience the death of a close relative. We demonstrate that our estimates of the bereavement multiplier are stable across epidemiological realities, including infection scenarios, total number of deaths, and the distribution of deaths, which means researchers can estimate the bereavement burden over the course of the epidemic in lockstep with rising death tolls. In addition, we provide estimates of bereavement multipliers by age group, types of kin loss, and race to illuminate prospective disparities. The bereavement multiplier is a useful indicator for tracking COVID-19's multiplicative impact as it reverberates across American families and can be tailored to other causes of death.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.