Exploring the Relationship between Care Homes and Excess Deaths in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from Italy

Caterina Alacevich, Nicolò Cavalli (), Osea Giuntella, Raffaele Lagravinese, Francesco Moscone () and Catia Nicodemo
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Nicolò Cavalli: Nuffield College, Oxford
Francesco Moscone: Brunel University

No 13492, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We explore the relationship between the spatial distributions of excess deaths and care home facilities during the COVID-19 outbreak in Italy. Using registry-based mortality data (January 1st- March 31st, 2015-2020) for Lombardy, one of the areas hit most severely, we estimate that municipalities with care homes present significantly higher excess death rates among the elderly (+41%). We find that this effect is not driven by the size of care homes and of the vulnerable population that they host. Rather, our results suggest that the excess deaths did not occur only within care homes and these facilities acted as one of the possible catalysts in the diffusion of COVID-19 in the whole elderly population of their surrounding territory.

Keywords: excess mortality; COVID-19; care homes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 I18 I30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 18 pages
Date: 2020-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-dem, nep-eur and nep-hea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published - published as 'The presence of care homes and excess deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from Italy' in: Health Economics, 2021, 30 (7), 1703-1710

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