Biology
Document Type
Article
Abstract
People of different racial/ethnic backgrounds, demographics, health, and socioeconomic characteristics have experienced disproportionate rates of infection and death due to COVID-19. This study tests if and how county-level rates of infection and death have changed in relation to societal county characteristics through time as the pandemic progressed. This longitudinal study sampled monthly county-level COVID-19 case and death data per 100,000 residents from April 2020 to March 2022, and studied the relationships of these variables with racial/ethnic, demographic, health, and socioeconomic characteristics for 3125 or 97.0% of U.S. counties, accounting for 96.4% of the U.S. population. The association of all county-level characteristics with COVID-19 case and death rates changed significantly through time, and showed different patterns. For example, counties with higher population proportions of Black, Native American, foreign-born non-citizen, elderly residents, households in poverty, or higher income inequality suffered disproportionately higher COVID-19 case and death rates at the beginning of the pandemic, followed by reversed, attenuated or fluctuating patterns, depending on the variable. Patterns for counties with higher White versus Black population proportions showed somewhat inverse patterns. Counties with higher female population proportions initially had lower case rates but higher death rates, and case and death rates become more coupled and fluctuated later in the pandemic. Counties with higher population densities had fluctuating case and death rates, with peaks coinciding with new variants of COVID-19. Counties with a greater proportion of university-educated residents had lower case and death rates throughout the pandemic, although the strength of this relationship fluctuated through time. This research clearly shows that how different segments of society are affected by a pandemic changes through time. Therefore, targeted policies and interventions that change as a pandemic unfolds are necessary to mitigate its disproportionate effects on vulnerable populations, particularly during the first six months of a pandemic.
Publication Title
PLOS Global Public Health
Publication Date
11-2022
Volume
2
Issue
11
ISSN
2767-3375
DOI
10.1371/journal.pgph.0001282
Keywords
death rates, COVID-19, pandemics, socioeconomic aspects of health, geriatric care, population density, vaccination and immunization, Native American people
Repository Citation
Bergmann, Philip J.; Ahlgren, Nathan A.; and Torres Stone, Rosalie A., "County-level societal predictors of COVID-19 cases and deaths changed through time in the United States: A longitudinal ecological study" (2022). Biology. 52.
https://commons.clarku.edu/faculty_biology/52
Cross Post Location
Sociology
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright Conditions
Bergmann, P. J., Ahlgren, N. A., & Torres Stone, R. A. (2022). County-level societal predictors of COVID-19 cases and deaths changed through time in the United States: A longitudinal ecological study. PLOS Global Public Health, 2(11), e0001282.
