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. 2018 Aug;108(8):1091-1098.
doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2018.304346.

Austerity Policies and Mortality in Spain After the Financial Crisis of 2008

Antonio Cabrera de León  1 , Itahisa Marcelino Rodríguez  1 , Fadoua Gannar  1 , Arturo J Pedrero García  1 , Delia Almeida González  1 , M Del Cristo Rodríguez Pérez  1 , Buenaventura Brito Díaz  1 , José Juan Alemán Sánchez  1 , Armando Aguirre-Jaime  1
Affiliations

Austerity Policies and Mortality in Spain After the Financial Crisis of 2008

Antonio Cabrera de León et al. Am J Public Health. 2018 Aug.

Retraction in

  • Notice of Retraction of an Article.
    [No authors listed] [No authors listed] Am J Public Health. 2019 Jul;109(7):e17. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2019.305147. Am J Public Health. 2019. PMID: 31166740 Free PMC article. No abstract available.

Abstract

Objectives: To analyze mortality in Spain and the United States before and after these countries implemented divergent policies in response to the financial crisis of 2008.

Methods: We examined mortality statistics in both countries in the years 2000 to 2015. Spain started austerity policies in 2010. We compared differences in mortality ratios, on the basis of trends and effect size analysis.

Results: During 2000 to 2010, overall mortality rates (r = 0.98; P < .001; Cohen's d = -0.228) decreased in both countries. In 2011, this trend changed abruptly in Spain, where observed mortality surpassed expected mortality by 29% in 2011 and by 41% in 2015. By contrast, observed mortality surpassed expected mortality in the United States by only 8% in 2015. As the mortality statistics diverged, the effect size greatly increased (d = 7.531). During this 5-year period, there were 505 559 more deaths in Spain than the expected number, while in the United States the difference was 431 501 more deaths despite the 7-fold larger population in the United States compared with Spain.

Conclusions: The marked excess mortality in 2011 to 2015 in Spain is attributable to austerity policies.

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Figures

FIGURE 1—
FIGURE 1—
Evolution of Age-Adjusted Mortality Rates (AAMRs) for (a) Overall, (b) Cardiovascular Disease, (c) Cancer, (d) Respiratory Disease, and (e) Suicide: United States and Spain, 2000–2015 Note. We truncated the y-axis outside the range of values reached by any mortality rate.
FIGURE 2—
FIGURE 2—
Evolution of Observed (O) and Expected (E) Age-Adjusted Mortality Rates (AAMRs) in (a) Spain and (b) United States: 2000–2015 Note. CI = confidence interval. We truncated the y-axis outside the range of values reached by any mortality rate.
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