ArticleArchives of disease in childhood2022
Child mortality in England during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Article in Archives of disease in childhood, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed.
- Deaths in children in England from SARS-CoV-2 infection during the first 2 years of the pandemic: a cohort study.BMJ open · 2025Article
- Child mortality in England after national lockdowns for COVID-19: An analysis of childhood deaths, 2019-2023.PLoS medicine · 2025Article
- Race and Ethnicity, Deprivation, and Infant Mortality in England, 2019-2022.JAMA network open · 2024Article
- The ethicality of the COVID-19 response in children and adolescents.Irish journal of medical science · 2024Article
- Newborn Health and Child Mortality Across England.JAMA network open · 2023Article
- Child Mortality in England During the First 2 Years of the COVID-19 Pandemic.JAMA network open · 2023Article
- Predictors of Mortality Among Children with Confirmed and Suspected Cases of COVID-19 in East Java, Indonesia.Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare · 2023Article
- The impact of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic on cause-specific mortality patterns: a systematic literature review.Zeitschrift fur Gesundheitswissenschaften = Journal of public health · 2022Review
- Covid-19 control measures and common paediatric infections.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesTo quantify the relative risk (RR) of childhood deaths across the whole of England during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, compared with a similar period of 2019.
designThis work is based on data collected by the National Child Mortality Database (NCMD). Deaths from 1 April 2020 until 31 March 2021 (2020-2021) were compared with those from the same period of 2019-2020. RR and excess mortality were derived for deaths in 2020-2021 vs 2019-2020.
settingAll deaths reported to NCMD in England of children under 18 years of age, between April 2019 and March 2021.
participants6490 deaths of children, under the age of 18 years, reported to the NCMD over the study period.
resultsChildren had similar demographics in the 2 years. There were 356 (198-514) fewer deaths in 2020-2021 than in 2019-2020 (RR 0.90 (0.85 to 0.94), p<0.001). Deaths from infection (RR 0.49 (0.38 to 0.64)) and from other underlying medical conditions (RR 0.75 (0.68 to 0.82)) were lower in 2020-2021 than 2019-2020, and weak evidence (RR 0.50 (0.23 to 1.07), p=0.074) that this was also true of deaths from substance abuse.
conclusionsChildhood mortality in England during the first year of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic was lower than expected, with over 300 fewer deaths than the preceding 12 months. The greatest reduction was in children less than 10 years old. It is important that we learn from this effect that potentially offers alternative ways to improve the outcome for the most vulnerable children in our society.
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