Age-Period-Cohort Analysis of Trends in Mental Health Mortality in India from 2001 to 2015

The current study was done to examine the trend of mental health mortality in India using age–period–cohort (APC) analysis. We have conducted a secondary data analysis by using the data on mental health mortality from WHO Global Health Estimates. We performed APC analysis by weighted least squares regression with assumption that data follows Poisson distribution.Annual increase in the age adjusted mortality rate due to mental health problems was 1.52%. Rate ratio (RR) increased consistently across all the age groups from 15–19 to 80–84 years. RR of period effects also showed increase from 2001–2005 to 2011–2015 periods. RR of cohort effects showed consistent increase from 1921–1925 to 1986–1990 cohorts and then decreasing from 1991–1995 to 1996–2000. To summarize, we found that mental health mortality shows increasing trend in India over the past decade with maximum increase among older population.