According to the study published in open access journal Sciences Advances, the authors found that in the subsample they studied, there was a reduction in life expectancy at birth of 2.6 years between 2019 and 2020, larger than reductions documented in any high-income country. This reduction was substantial even relative to trends in India: overall life expectancy at birth in 2020 was equivalent to all-India levels over a decade earlier.
Relative to the 1.3-year life expectancy loss among high-caste Hindus, the loss for Muslims was 5.4 years.
Health ministry silent on paper’s claims on SC/STs, Muslims
Union Health Ministry on Saturday criticised the methodology of taking a subset of households included in the NFHS survey between Jan and April 2021, and comparing the mortality in these households in 2020 with 2019, and then extrapolating the results to the entire country.
“The NFHS sample is representative of the country only when it is considered as a whole. 23% of households included in this analysis from part of 14 states cannot be considered representative of the country. The other critical flaw is related to possible selection and reporting biases in the included sample due to the time in which these data were collected, at the peak of Covid-19 pandemic,” countered the ministry in its statement.The study found that the decline in life expectancy was similar in rural and urban India with a greater decline for marginalised social groups like women, scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and Muslims. Relative to the 1.3 year life expectancy loss among high caste Hindus, the loss for Muslims was 5.4 years, for STs 4.1 years and for SCs 2.7 years, stated the paper. “In 2020, Muslim life expectancy was the lowest across the five social groups, a result of the fact that Muslims observed the greatest declines in life expectancy at birth between 2019 and 2020,” stated the paper attributing this to “further marginalisation of Muslims in 2020”.While health ministry’s statement in reaction to the paper did not comment on the findings regarding Muslims, SCs and STs, it pointed out that the paper’s claim about excess mortality being greater in women and younger age groups was contrary to data on 5.3 lakh recorded deaths due to Covid as well as research data from cohorts and registries consistently showing higher mortality due to Covid among men and in older age groups.
Health ministry added that excess mortality during the pandemic meant an increase in deaths due to all causes, and could not be equated with deaths that were directly caused by Covid-19.
The paper stated that the increase in all-cause mortality in 2020 could be due to deteriorating economic conditions and pandemic disruptions to public health services such as childhood immunizations, tuberculosis treatment, and hospital births identified in earlier research papers. Health ministry argued that SRS data in 2020 showed very little, if any, excess mortality compared with 2019 and no reduction in life expectancy.
(With TOI inputs)
