US coronavirus deaths have left 1 million Americans grieving, researchers estimate

More than 1 million Americans are grieving the loss of a close family member to COVID-19, according to new analysis from researchers at the University of Southern California.

The team used a ”demographic microsimulation” to create an indicator called the coronavirus “bereavement multiplier,” according to the research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on July 10.

The bereavement multiplier estimates how many people will experience the death of a close family member each time a person dies of COVID-19.

The analysis defines a close family member as a grandparent, parent, sibling, spouse or child.

Using the bereavement multiplier, researchers estimate that each person who dies of COVID-19 in the U.S. will leave about nine close family members grieving.

Johns Hopkins University data show that 135,615 people have died in the U.S. due to coronavirus as of Tuesday morning. Using the bereavement multiplier, that means more than 1.22 million people are grieving the loss of a close family member since the onset of the pandemic.

“In just a few short months, over 1 million Americans have experienced an irreplaceable loss that not only leaves them grieving and possibly traumatized but may come with long-lasting health and economic consequences for themselves and others in their family,” Emily Smith-Greenaway, study co-author and associate professor of sociology at USC, said in a news release.

Researchers said they want to remind Americans that even as a pandemic diminishes in severity, it will still leave a trail of grieving people in its wake.

“Because many individuals who have died were simultaneously a spouse, parent, grandparent, sibling and child, the collective toll of the crisis is far greater when considering all of the individuals bereaved by each death,” researchers said.

The team said they believe the bereavement burden of COVID-19 is actually much higher than their estimates; researchers only analyzed five types of family relationships.

Were family members such as in-laws, aunts, uncles and cousins considered, researchers said the bereavement multiplier would be much higher and still wouldn’t account for grieving friends, neighbors or coworkers.

Researchers said studying the “bereavement burden” of the coronavirus can help experts better understand the reach and social impact of a pandemic as well as identify the severity of a potential wave of health issues linked to grief.

Grief can put people at a higher risk of generally poorer health and relational strain, according to the team. It can also negatively impact academic success in young people and limit their sources of social support.

Looking ahead, researchers said the logic behind the bereavement multiplier can also be repurposed to develop the same tool for leading causes of death such as cancer and “mortality crises” such as the opioid epidemic and gun violence.

This story was originally published July 14, 2020 at 7:35 AM with the headline "US coronavirus deaths have left 1 million Americans grieving, researchers estimate."