Comparative magnitude of economic-deprivation-related life loss from the Covid-19 response

Ascertain whether there are solid reasons to expect that the life expectancy losses associated with economic deprivation resulting from the United Kingdom’s Covid-19 response will be smaller than the life loss effects observed following the 2008 financial crisis.

Background

Using a difference-in-differences approach across deprivation deciles, the authors estimate that post-2008 policy responses were associated with increased avoidable life loss (approximately 7–9 weeks per capita in England). They argue that similar or larger effects could plausibly follow the larger economic disruption caused by the Covid-19 response.

Because credible reasons to expect smaller downstream life loss are not evident, a key unresolved question is whether the Covid-19 response’s deprivation-linked mortality impacts are indeed smaller than those post-2008. Addressing this requires robust causal inference linking economic shocks from the Covid-19 response to subsequent life expectancy changes across socioeconomic strata.

References

It is unclear that there are any solid reasons to expect the Covid response economic deprivation related life loss effects to be smaller.

— Some statistical aspects of the Covid-19 response  (2409.06473 - Wood et al., 2024) in Section 2.2, The risk of life loss from economic shock