Measuring excess mortality: the case of England during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Janine Aron () and John Muellbauer

INET Oxford Working Papers from Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford

Abstract: Excess mortality data avoid miscounting deaths from under-reporting of Covid-19-related deaths and other health conditions left untreated. According to EuroMOMO, which tracks excess mortality for 24 European states, England had the highest peak weekly excess mortality in total, for the over-65s, and, most strikingly, for the 15-64 age group. This column argues that research is needed into such divergent patterns. It suggests that national statistical offices should publish P-scores (excess deaths divided by 'normal' deaths) for states and sub-regions, and permit EuroMOMO to publish P-scores as well as their less transparent Z-scores. This would aid comparability, better inform pandemic policy, and allow lessons to be drawn across heterogeneous regions and countries.

Pages: 20 pages
Date: 2020-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-isf
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.inet.ox.ac.uk/files/revised-15.54-18-M ... tality-article-x.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:amz:wpaper:2020-11

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in INET Oxford Working Papers from Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by INET Oxford admin team ().