IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v18y2021i8p4021-d534248.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Identification of Vulnerable Populations and Areas at Higher Risk of COVID-19-Related Mortality during the Early Stage of the Epidemic in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Esteban Correa-Agudelo

    (Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45220, USA
    Health Geography and Disease Modeling Laboratory, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45220, USA)

  • Tesfaye B. Mersha

    (Division of Asthma Research, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Department of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45220, USA)

  • Adam J. Branscum

    (Department of Biostatistics, College of Public Health and Human Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA)

  • Neil J. MacKinnon

    (Geospatial Health Advising Group, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45220, USA
    Medical College of Georgia, Augusta University, Augusta, GA 30912, USA)

  • Diego F. Cuadros

    (Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45220, USA
    Health Geography and Disease Modeling Laboratory, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45220, USA
    Geospatial Health Advising Group, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45220, USA)

Abstract

We characterized vulnerable populations located in areas at higher risk of COVID-19-related mortality and low critical healthcare capacity during the early stage of the epidemic in the United States. We analyze data obtained from a Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 database to assess the county-level spatial variation of COVID-19-related mortality risk during the early stage of the epidemic in relation to health determinants and health infrastructure. Overall, we identified highly populated and polluted areas, regional air hub areas, race minorities (non-white population), and Hispanic or Latino population with an increased risk of COVID-19-related death during the first phase of the epidemic. The 10 highest COVID-19 mortality risk areas in highly populated counties had on average a lower proportion of white population (48.0%) and higher proportions of black population (18.7%) and other races (33.3%) compared to the national averages of 83.0%, 9.1%, and 7.9%, respectively. The Hispanic and Latino population proportion was higher in these 10 counties (29.3%, compared to the national average of 9.3%). Counties with major air hubs had a 31% increase in mortality risk compared to counties with no airport connectivity. Sixty-eight percent of the counties with high COVID-19-related mortality risk also had lower critical care capacity than the national average. The disparity in health and environmental risk factors might have exacerbated the COVID-19-related mortality risk in vulnerable groups during the early stage of the epidemic.

Suggested Citation

  • Esteban Correa-Agudelo & Tesfaye B. Mersha & Adam J. Branscum & Neil J. MacKinnon & Diego F. Cuadros, 2021. "Identification of Vulnerable Populations and Areas at Higher Risk of COVID-19-Related Mortality during the Early Stage of the Epidemic in the United States," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(8), pages 1-13, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:8:p:4021-:d:534248
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/8/4021/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/8/4021/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Julian Besag & Jeremy York & Annie Mollié, 1991. "Bayesian image restoration, with two applications in spatial statistics," Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics, Springer;The Institute of Statistical Mathematics, vol. 43(1), pages 1-20, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Peter Congdon, 2021. "COVID-19 Mortality in English Neighborhoods: The Relative Role of Socioeconomic and Environmental Factors," J, MDPI, vol. 4(2), pages 1-16, May.
    2. Giuseppe Alessio Platania & Simone Varrasi & Claudia Savia Guerrera & Francesco Maria Boccaccio & Vittoria Torre & Venera Francesca Vezzosi & Concetta Pirrone & Sabrina Castellano, 2024. "Impact of Stress during COVID-19 Pandemic in Italy: A Study on Dispositional and Behavioral Dimensions for Supporting Evidence-Based Targeted Strategies," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 21(3), pages 1-15, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Katie Wilson & Jon Wakefield, 2022. "A probabilistic model for analyzing summary birth history data," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 47(11), pages 291-344.
    2. Eibich, Peter & Ziebarth, Nicolas, 2014. "Examining the Structure of Spatial Health Effects in Germany Using Hierarchical Bayes Models," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 49, pages 305-320.
    3. Shreosi Sanyal & Thierry Rochereau & Cara Nichole Maesano & Laure Com-Ruelle & Isabella Annesi-Maesano, 2018. "Long-Term Effect of Outdoor Air Pollution on Mortality and Morbidity: A 12-Year Follow-Up Study for Metropolitan France," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-8, November.
    4. Mayer Alvo & Jingrui Mu, 2023. "COVID-19 Data Analysis Using Bayesian Models and Nonparametric Geostatistical Models," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-13, March.
    5. Gil, Guilherme Dôco Roberti & Costa, Marcelo Azevedo & Lopes, Ana Lúcia Miranda & Mayrink, Vinícius Diniz, 2017. "Spatial statistical methods applied to the 2015 Brazilian energy distribution benchmarking model: Accounting for unobserved determinants of inefficiencies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 373-383.
    6. Vanessa Santos-Sánchez & Juan Antonio Córdoba-Doña & Javier García-Pérez & Antonio Escolar-Pujolar & Lucia Pozzi & Rebeca Ramis, 2020. "Cancer Mortality and Deprivation in the Proximity of Polluting Industrial Facilities in an Industrial Region of Spain," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(6), pages 1-15, March.
    7. Berti, Patrizia & Dreassi, Emanuela & Rigo, Pietro, 2014. "Compatibility results for conditional distributions," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 190-203.
    8. Louise Choo & Stephen G. Walker, 2008. "A new approach to investigating spatial variations of disease," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 171(2), pages 395-405, April.
    9. Young‐Geun Choi & Lawrence P. Hanrahan & Derek Norton & Ying‐Qi Zhao, 2022. "Simultaneous spatial smoothing and outlier detection using penalized regression, with application to childhood obesity surveillance from electronic health records," Biometrics, The International Biometric Society, vol. 78(1), pages 324-336, March.
    10. Zhengyi Zhou & David S. Matteson & Dawn B. Woodard & Shane G. Henderson & Athanasios C. Micheas, 2015. "A Spatio-Temporal Point Process Model for Ambulance Demand," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 110(509), pages 6-15, March.
    11. Eric C. Tassone & Marie Lynn Miranda & Alan E. Gelfand, 2010. "Disaggregated spatial modelling for areal unit categorical data," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 59(1), pages 175-190, January.
    12. Junming Li & Xiulan Han & Xiao Li & Jianping Yang & Xuejiao Li, 2018. "Spatiotemporal Patterns of Ground Monitored PM 2.5 Concentrations in China in Recent Years," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-15, January.
    13. Sanjay Chaudhuri & Debashis Mondal & Teng Yin, 2017. "Hamiltonian Monte Carlo sampling in Bayesian empirical likelihood computation," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 79(1), pages 293-320, January.
    14. Dolores Catelan & Annibale Biggeri & Corrado Lagazio, 2009. "On the clustering term in ecological analysis: how do different prior specifications affect results?," Statistical Methods & Applications, Springer;Società Italiana di Statistica, vol. 18(1), pages 49-61, March.
    15. Massimo Bilancia & Giacomo Demarinis, 2014. "Bayesian scanning of spatial disease rates with integrated nested Laplace approximation (INLA)," Statistical Methods & Applications, Springer;Società Italiana di Statistica, vol. 23(1), pages 71-94, March.
    16. Douglas R. M. Azevedo & Marcos O. Prates & Dipankar Bandyopadhyay, 2021. "MSPOCK: Alleviating Spatial Confounding in Multivariate Disease Mapping Models," Journal of Agricultural, Biological and Environmental Statistics, Springer;The International Biometric Society;American Statistical Association, vol. 26(3), pages 464-491, September.
    17. Edgar Santos‐Fernandez & Erin E. Peterson & Julie Vercelloni & Em Rushworth & Kerrie Mengersen, 2021. "Correcting misclassification errors in crowdsourced ecological data: A Bayesian perspective," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 70(1), pages 147-173, January.
    18. Ying C. MacNab, 2018. "Some recent work on multivariate Gaussian Markov random fields," TEST: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research, Springer;Sociedad de Estadística e Investigación Operativa, vol. 27(3), pages 497-541, September.
    19. Jonathan Wakefield & Taylor Okonek & Jon Pedersen, 2020. "Small Area Estimation for Disease Prevalence Mapping," International Statistical Review, International Statistical Institute, vol. 88(2), pages 398-418, August.
    20. Julien Riou & Anthony Hauser & Anna Fesser & Christian L. Althaus & Matthias Egger & Garyfallos Konstantinoudis, 2023. "Direct and indirect effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on mortality in Switzerland," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-9, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:8:p:4021-:d:534248. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.