TY - JOUR
T1 - The effects of India's COVID-19 lockdown on critical non-COVID health care and outcomes
T2 - Evidence from dialysis patients
AU - Jain, Radhika
AU - Dupas, Pascaline
N1 - Funding Information: This research was funded by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation , awarded through the J-PAL CaTCH Initiative's special COVID-19 funding window. The funder had no role in the design or execution of the research. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Authors
PY - 2022/3
Y1 - 2022/3
N2 - India's COVID-19 lockdown, one of the most severe in the world, is widely believed to have disrupted critical non-COVID health services. However, linking these disruptions to effects on health outcomes has been difficult due to the lack of reliable, up-to-date health outcomes data. We identified all dialysis patients under a statewide health insurance program in Rajasthan, India (N = 2110), and conducted surveys to examine the effects of the lockdown on non-COVID care access and health outcomes. Post-lockdown mortality was our primary outcome and morbidity and hospitalization were secondary outcomes. 63% of patients experienced a disruption to their care. Transport barriers, hospital service disruptions, and difficulty obtaining medicines were the most common causes. We compared monthly mortality in the four months after the lockdown with pre-lockdown mortality trends, as well as with mortality trends for a similar cohort in the previous year. Mortality in May 2020, after a month of exposure to the lockdown, was 1.70 percentage points (95% CI 0.01–0.03) or 64% higher than in March 2020 and total excess mortality between April and July was estimated to be 22%. A 1SD increase in an index of care disruptions was associated with a 0.17SD (95% CI 0.13–0.22) increase in a morbidity index, a 3.1 percentage point (95% CI 0.012–0.051) increase in hospitalization, and a 2.1 percentage point (95% CI 0.00–0.04) increase in probability of death between May and July. Females, socioeconomically disadvantaged groups, and patients living far from the health system faced worse outcomes. The results highlight the unintended consequences of the lockdown on critical, life-saving non-COVID health services that must be taken into account in the implementation of future policy efforts to control the spread of pandemics.
AB - India's COVID-19 lockdown, one of the most severe in the world, is widely believed to have disrupted critical non-COVID health services. However, linking these disruptions to effects on health outcomes has been difficult due to the lack of reliable, up-to-date health outcomes data. We identified all dialysis patients under a statewide health insurance program in Rajasthan, India (N = 2110), and conducted surveys to examine the effects of the lockdown on non-COVID care access and health outcomes. Post-lockdown mortality was our primary outcome and morbidity and hospitalization were secondary outcomes. 63% of patients experienced a disruption to their care. Transport barriers, hospital service disruptions, and difficulty obtaining medicines were the most common causes. We compared monthly mortality in the four months after the lockdown with pre-lockdown mortality trends, as well as with mortality trends for a similar cohort in the previous year. Mortality in May 2020, after a month of exposure to the lockdown, was 1.70 percentage points (95% CI 0.01–0.03) or 64% higher than in March 2020 and total excess mortality between April and July was estimated to be 22%. A 1SD increase in an index of care disruptions was associated with a 0.17SD (95% CI 0.13–0.22) increase in a morbidity index, a 3.1 percentage point (95% CI 0.012–0.051) increase in hospitalization, and a 2.1 percentage point (95% CI 0.00–0.04) increase in probability of death between May and July. Females, socioeconomically disadvantaged groups, and patients living far from the health system faced worse outcomes. The results highlight the unintended consequences of the lockdown on critical, life-saving non-COVID health services that must be taken into account in the implementation of future policy efforts to control the spread of pandemics.
KW - COVID-19
KW - Chronic kidney disease
KW - Dialysis
KW - Excess mortality
KW - Health systems
KW - Non-communicable disease
KW - Non-pharmaceutical intervention
KW - Pandemic
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U2 - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.114762
DO - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.114762
M3 - Article
C2 - 35151150
SN - 0277-9536
VL - 296
JO - Social Science and Medicine
JF - Social Science and Medicine
M1 - 114762
ER -