Using newspaper obituaries to “nowcast” daily mortality: Evidence from the Italian COVID-19 hot-spots

Paolo Buonanno and Marcello Puca

Health Policy, 2021, vol. 125, issue 4, 535-540

Abstract: Real-time tracking of epidemic helps governments and health authorities make timely data-driven decisions. Official mortality data, whenever reliable and available, is usually published with a substantial delay. We report results of using newspapers obituaries to “nowcast” the mortality levels observed in Italy during the COVID-19 outbreak between February 24, 2020 and April 15, 2020. Mortality levels predicted using obituaries outperform forecasts based on past mortality according to several performance metrics, making obituaries a potentially valid alternative source of information to deal with epidemic surveillance.

Keywords: COVID-19; Forecasting; Excess mortality; Big data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C53 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:125:y:2021:i:4:p:535-540

DOI: 10.1016/j.healthpol.2021.01.006

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