ArticlePloS one2020
Loneliness in life and in death? Social and demographic patterns of unclaimed deaths.
Article in PloS one, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Histories in bone: Navigating the ethical landscape of human skeletal collections in South Africa.Anatomical sciences education · 2026Article
- Deep disadvantage in mortality on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Potential Risk Factors for Lonely Death: A Nationwide Case-Control Study in Korea.Journal of Korean medical science · 2025Article
- Who Dies Alone? Demographics, Underlying Diseases, and Healthcare Utilization Patterns of Lonely Death Individuals in Korea.Journal of preventive medicine and public health = Yebang Uihakhoe chi · 2025Article
- Understanding deep disadvantage at the end of life: A nationwide analysis of unclaimed deaths.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2025Article
- "If no one grieves, no one will remember": Cultural palimpsests and the creation of social ties through rituals.The British journal of sociology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
We examined family isolation, economic hardship, and long-distance migration as potential patterns of an extreme outcome of a lonely death: bodily remains that remain unclaimed and are left to the state. This paper combines a unique dataset-Los Angeles County's records of unclaimed deaths-with the Vital Statistics' Mortality data and the Annual Social and Economic Survey (ASEC) to examine 1) whose remains are more likely to become unclaimed after death and, 2) whether population-level differences and trends in family isolation, economic hardship, and long-distance migration explain the differences in the rates of unclaimed deaths. We employ multivariate Poisson models to estimate relative rates of unclaimed deaths by social and demographic characteristics. We find that increases in never married, divorced/separated, and living without family were positively associated with rates of unclaimed deaths. Unemployment among men and poverty among women was associated with higher unclaimed deaths. Long-distance migration was not associated with more unclaimed bodies.
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Registered trials
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