Reporting COVID-19 deaths in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and the UK

West, Anne ORCID: 0000-0003-2932-7667, Czypionka, Thomas, Steffen, Monica, Ettelt, Stefanie, Ghislandi, Simone and Mateus, Céu (2020) Reporting COVID-19 deaths in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and the UK. Social Policy Working Paper Series (10-20). Department of Social Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK.

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Abstract

The reporting of deaths associated with the SARS-CoV-2 virus has had a high policy profile during the COVID-19 pandemic. This in turn is related to how deaths are counted. In this paper we focus on six European countries: Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and the United Kingdom and seek to address the following research questions: How do countries vary in terms of legislative provision, recording of deaths and reporting deaths? And what limits the comparability of data across countries? The methods comprised an analysis of policy documents in each of the six countries. Our findings reveal differences between countries in terms of legislative provision, recording deaths, and reporting deaths. These differences have an impact on the comparability of data on deaths associated with COVID-19 across countries. Our findings suggest that there is a case for data collection and statistics to be harmonised, which would facilitate accurate comparison between countries. However, reporting is also related to testing capacity for COVID-19, so this is not simply a question of comparable data being available, rather a question of the overall functioning of the public health system.

Item Type:	Monograph (Working Paper)
Official URL:	https://www.lse.ac.uk/social-policy/research/worki...
Additional Information:	© 2020 The Authors
Divisions:	Social Policy
Subjects:	R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
Date Deposited:	22 Feb 2022 09:06
Last Modified:	01 Apr 2024 08:44
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/113794

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