An open-sourced, web-based application to analyze weekly excess mortality based on the Short-term Mortality Fluctuations data series

PLoS One. 2021 Feb 5;16(2):e0246663. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0246663. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic stimulated the interest of scientists, decision makers and the general public in short-term mortality fluctuations caused by epidemics and other natural or man-made disasters. To address this interest and provide a basis for further research, in May 2020, the Short-term Mortality Fluctuations data series was launched as a new section of the Human Mortality Database. At present, this unique data resource provides weekly mortality death counts and rates by age and sex for 38 countries and regions. The main objective of this paper is to detail the web-based application for visualizing and analyzing the excess mortality based on the Short-term Mortality Fluctuation data series. The application yields a visual representation of the database that enhances the understanding of the underlying data. Besides, it enables the users to explore data on weekly mortality and excess mortality across years and countries. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, to describe a visualization tool that aims to facilitate research on short-term mortality fluctuations. Second, to provide a comprehensive open-source software solution for demographic data to encourage data holders to promote their datasets in a visual framework.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • COVID-19 / mortality*
  • Computer Graphics*
  • Databases, Factual
  • Humans
  • Internet
  • Mortality
  • Software*
  • Time Factors

Grants and funding

The work on the tool and the paper was supported by the Volkswagen Foundation (project "Strengthening a reliable evidence base for monitoring the COVID-19 and other disasters"). Support from the Basic Research Program of the National Research University Higher School of Economics is also gratefully acknowledged. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.