COVID-19 mortality data and level of democracy in post-communist countries: Data sources and accuracy

Emerging studies highlight the potential influence of different political regimes on COVID-19 mortality statistics reliability. This study has two objectives: first, to analyze COVID-19 mortality datasets and identify accurate sources for post-communist countries of the European Union and former Soviet Union; second, to examine the relations between COVID-19 mortality data quality and democracy levels in these countries. Given limited open access or transparent national data sources in some countries, this analysis seeks to help researchers identify optimal existing sources for these regions. Observed mortality levels during the pandemic were evaluated in relation to democracy levels to explore associations between governance and data reporting practices. Two mortality indicators (excess mortality and undercount ratio of deaths) were analyzed over 2020–2021 based on three international databases: World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations World Population Prospects (UN WPP), and World Mortality Dataset (WMD). These sources were crucial since some post-communist countries’ national statistical offices do not publish mortality data publicly. The Democracy Index from The Economist Intelligence Unit (2019–2021) was used for democracy classification. Countries were grouped based on mortality characteristics, using cluster analysis. Results suggest that lower democracy levels may be a risk factor for transparency in health data reporting.