Have Deaths of Despair Risen during the COVID-19 Pandemic? A Systematic Review

Hania Rahimi-Ardabili, Xiaoqi Feng, Phi-Yen Nguyen and Thomas Astell-Burt ()
Additional contact information
Hania Rahimi-Ardabili: Centre for Health Informatics, Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University, Sydney 2109, Australia
Xiaoqi Feng: Population Wellbeing and Environment Research Lab (PowerLab), Wollongong 2522, Australia
Phi-Yen Nguyen: Population Wellbeing and Environment Research Lab (PowerLab), Wollongong 2522, Australia
Thomas Astell-Burt: Population Wellbeing and Environment Research Lab (PowerLab), Wollongong 2522, Australia

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 19, 1-12

Abstract: This systematic review synthesized literature on potential impacts of protracted isolation and other disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic on deaths of despair (suicide, overdoses, and drug-related liver diseases). Five electronic databases were searched yielding 70 eligible articles. Extant evidence mostly from high-income countries indicates COVID-19-related disruption may not have influenced suicide rates so far, but there have been reports of increased drug-related and liver disease mortality. Minority groups and women were more vulnerable, indicating the need for stronger equity focus on pandemic recovery and resilience strategies. Further high-quality studies with longer-term follow-up, especially from low-income countries, will inform these strategies.

Keywords: deaths of despair; overdose; suicide; COVID-19; systematic review (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/19/12835/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/19/12835/ (text/html)

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:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:19:p:12835-:d:935369

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().