Rural-Urban Divide of COVID-19 fatalities in India – Investigating the Role of Lifestyle Disorder Diseases

Basu, Parantap; Das, Susmita; Dutta Choudhury, Arnab; Mazumder, Ritwik; Sengupta, Mahuya

Abstract

Using data on weekly COVID-19 infections and fatalities at the district level for 19 states and 4 union territories of India, we investigate the determinants of COVID-19 deaths focusing exclusively on the second wave of infections. We include several macroeconomic and structural indicators for districts namely, per capita district domestic product, the degree of urbanization, population density, percentage of aged population, share of agriculture, poverty, amongst several others. Our findings suggest that fatalities have a clear rural-urban divide. Rural agricultural districts with more poor people have experienced less cases and fatalities. Fatalities are more clustered in prosperous and dense industrial districts. Regions having higher COVID-19 fatalities also have a higher proportion of ageing population with urban life-style disorder related diseases such as obesity, diabetes and hypertension. Prevalence of respiratory illnesses further aggravate the effects of some of these life-style disorder diseases on Covid fatalities.

Citation

Basu, P., Das, S., Dutta Choudhury, A., Mazumder, R., & Sengupta, M. (online). Rural-Urban Divide of COVID-19 fatalities in India – Investigating the Role of Lifestyle Disorder Diseases. Journal of Quantitative Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/s40953-024-00422-w

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 14, 2024
• Online Publication Date: Oct 26, 2024
• Deposit Date: Sep 16, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 28, 2024
• Journal: Journal of Quantitative Economics
• Print ISSN: 0971-1554
• Electronic ISSN: 2364-1045
• Publisher: Springer
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40953-024-00422-w
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2865034