Socioeconomic patterns and determinants of adult mortality due to external-causes in India: Analysis of nationally-representative, population-based survey data

The objective of this study is to analyze the pattern and risk factors of all-cause and external-cause mortality among adults in India. Using a nationally-representative, population-based survey, known as the National Family Health Survey, 2015-2016, we calculate age-specific death rates among adults aged 15-64 for all causes and external causes in the three years before the survey. We estimate external cause-deleted life expectancy by sex and apply logistic regression to investigate the socioeconomic determinants of all-cause and external-cause mortality in India. The male disadvantage in external-cause mortality is higher than in all-cause mortality. For all-cause mortality, caste and household wealth quintile (WQ) are significant predictors for both sexes. For external-cause mortality, Hindu adults experience a higher risk than adults from other religious groups. Moreover, the risk of death from external causes is negatively associated with household WQ. Our study demonstrates that people belonging to lower socioeconomic strata disproportionately carry the burden of death from external causes