Examining recent mortality trends
The impact of demographic change
The pandemic resulted in a significant increase in the number of deaths in many OECD
countries. With detailed data now available by age and sex, this OECD Health Working
Paper examines the trends and differences in mortality patterns over the three-year
span of the pandemic. While a simple comparison of the raw number of deaths with reference
to a historical base period has proved to be an important and straightforward indicator
to assess the overall impact of the pandemic, most OECD countries have undergone major
changes in population size and structure. This paper reviews the methodology of calculating
changes in mortality to take account of such demographic trends and, in producing
a revised set of estimates using adjusted numbers of deaths, highlights some important
variations in mortality across years, countries and age groups.
Available from November 21, 2023
In series:OECD Health Working Papersview more titles