Quarantine lockdown impact on deaths due to heart and cerebrovascular diseases in the United States, between 2019 and 2022

Abstract

Background: Worldwide, ischemic heart diseases and strokes are the main causes of death in developed and developing countries. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the countries around the world took stringent measures to contain the virus spread, avoid the collapse of health systems, and minimize deaths. Even though these measures appeared to be effective in reducing the COVID-19 spread, in the short-term quarantine may also have increased deaths due to heart diseases because of a drop in medical checkups for cardiovascular risk factors, emergency visits to hospitals and hospitalization. Objective: The aim of this paper is to assess the short-term impact of stringent COVID-19 quarantine measures on deaths from heart and cerebrovascular diseases not related to COVID-19 in the United States, between 2019 and 2022. Data and methodology: I consider weekly data on the number of deaths by jurisdiction, the causes of death and the intensity of the stringency measures taken by each jurisdiction to control the COVID-19 spread, to construct a panel database from January 2019 to December 2021. With the panel database I follow a staggered difference-in-differences identification strategy. Results: I find a positive and statistically significant effect of lockdowns on deaths due to heart and cerebrovascular diseases. However, there is not enough confidence in the parallel trends’ identification assumption. Implications: It is important to further analyze the impact of lockdowns on different health outcomes, in order to implement comprehensive policy designs in the event of future pandemics.