ArticlePLOS global public health2022
Estimates of pandemic excess mortality in India based on civil registration data.
Article in PLOS global public health, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed.
- Health systems resilience and private for-profit sector engagement: lessons from the second COVID-19 wave in Uttar Pradesh, India.Health policy and planning · 2026Article
- Article
- The mortality burden from COVID in low-income settings: evidence from verbal autopsies in India.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Widow and Widower Mortality in India: A Research Note.Demography · 2025Article
- Excess mortality during COVID-19 and prediction of mortality in Bangladesh: an analysis based on death records in urban graveyards.Journal of global health · 2025Article
- Large and unequal life expectancy declines during the COVID-19 pandemic in India in 2020.Science advances · 2024Article
- Analysis of anthropometric outcomes in Indian children during the COVID-19 pandemic using National Family Health Survey data.Communications medicine · 2024Article
- Construction and validation of a covariate-based model for district-level estimation of excess deaths due to COVID-19 in India.Journal of global health · 2024Article
- Conventional and frugal methods of estimating COVID-19-related excess deaths and undercount factors.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Observational
- The COVID-19 pandemic death toll in India: can we know better?BMJ global health · 2023Article
- Attributed causes of excess mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic in a south Indian city.Nature communications · 2023Article
- A systematic review of excess all-cause mortality estimation studies in India during COVID-19 pandemic.Medical journal, Armed Forces India · 2023Review
- Association of greenness with COVID-19 deaths in India: An ecological study at district level.Environmental research · 2023Article
- Adaptations to the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic by private sector tuberculosis care providers in India.Journal of clinical tuberculosis and other mycobacterial diseases · 2022Article
- COVID mortality in India: National survey data and health facility deaths.Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2022Article
- Article
- Meta-analysis of nationwide SARS-CoV-2 infection fatality rates in India.PLOS global public health · 2022Article
- Article
- Systematic Review of Excess Mortality in India during the Covid-19 Pandemic with Differentiation between Model-Based and Data-Based Mortality Estimates.Indian journal of community medicine : official publication of Indian Association of Preventive & Social MedicineReview
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Abstract
The population health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are less well understood in low and middle-income countries, where mortality surveillance before the pandemic was patchy. Interpreting the limited all-cause mortality data available in India is challenging. We use existing data on all-cause mortality from civil registration systems of twelve Indian states comprising around 60% of the national population to understand the scale and timing of excess deaths in India during the COVID-19 pandemic. We carefully characterize the reasons why registration is incomplete and estimate the extent of coverage in the data. Comparing the pandemic period to 2019, we estimate excess mortality in twelve Indian states, and extrapolate our estimates to the rest of India. We explore sensitivity of the estimates to various assumptions. For the 12 states with available all-cause mortality data, we document an increase of 28% in deaths during April 2020-May 2021 relative to expectations from 2019. This level of increase in mortality, if it applies nationally, would imply 2.8-2.9 million excess deaths. More limited data from June 2021 increases national estimates of excess deaths during April 2020-June 2021 to 3.8 million. With more optimistic or pessimistic assumptions, excess deaths during this period could credibly lie between 2.8 million and 5.2 million. The scale of estimated excess deaths is broadly consistent with expectations based on seroprevalence and COVID-19 fatality rates observed internationally. Moreover, the timing of excess deaths and recorded COVID-19 deaths is similar-they rise and fall at the same time. The surveillance of pandemic mortality in India has been extremely poor, with 8-10 times as many excess deaths as officially recorded COVID-19 deaths. India is among the countries most severely impacted by the pandemic. Our approach highlights the utility of all-cause mortality data, as well as the significant challenges in interpreting it.
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