Burden of Adult Mortality in India: Socioeconomic Inequality and Impact on Household Wellbeing

The record of vital events such as births and deaths are the most critical social statistics that have been increasingly used for monitoring social and health development. Most developing countries do not have a complete and robust vital registration system, leading to a lack of mortality data. Therefore, a rigorous assessment of adult mortality and disparities is limited. The research project: AMI: SEI (Burden of Adult Mortality in India: Socioeconomic Inequality and Impact on Household Wellbeing) as a case study of India aims to investigate adult mortality in order to fill in knowledge gaps and strengthen evidence-based policies for tackling potentially avoidable adult deaths at working ages (15-59 years). Rising deaths due to non-communicable chronic diseases and violent deaths such as traffic accidents and suicides pose new challenges for sustainable health progress in Low-middle income countries (LMICs). These emerging health threats primarily affect disadvantaged population groups with lower socioeconomic status. Therefore, this project focuses on adult mortality by socio- economic characteristics from a demographic and public health perspective. First, the proposed study will explore regional inequality in adult mortality by gender across the different Indian regions during 1990-2023 and impact of COVID-19 in 2020-21 on adult mortality. Second, a systematic assessment of adult mortality disparities by socio- economic group will be conducted in order to identify commonalities and differences in the magnitude and patterns of disparities in India. Finally, the economic impact of potentially avoidable adult deaths on the well-being of households will be examined. The expected scientific outcomes of this project will provide new policy-relevant knowledge about adult mortality patterns and mortality disparities in developing countries contributing the biggest share of global adult deaths.