• Clin. Infect. Dis. · May 2021

    Social Disadvantage, Politics, and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Trends: A County-level Analysis of United States Data.

    • Ahmad Mourad, Nicholas A Turner, Arthur W Baker, Nwora Lance Okeke, Shanti Narayanasamy, Robert Rolfe, John J Engemann, Gary M Cox, and Jason E Stout.
    • Department of Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, USA.
    • Clin. Infect. Dis. 2021 May 18; 72 (10): e604-e607.

    BackgroundUnderstanding the epidemiology of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is essential for public health control efforts. Social, demographic, and political characteristics at the United States (US) county level might be associated with changes in SARS-CoV-2 case incidence.MethodsWe conducted a retrospective analysis of the relationship between the change in reported SARS-CoV-2 case counts at the US county level during 1 June-30 June 2020 and social, demographic, and political characteristics of the county.ResultsOf 3142 US counties, 1023 were included in the analysis: 678 (66.3%) had increasing and 345 (33.7%) nonincreasing SARS-CoV-2 case counts between 1 June and 30 June 2020. In bivariate analysis, counties with increasing case counts had a significantly higher Social Deprivation Index (median, 48 [interquartile range {IQR}, 24-72]) than counties with nonincreasing case counts (median, 40 [IQR, 19-66]; P = .009). Counties with increasing case counts were significantly more likely to be metropolitan areas of 250 000-1 million population (P < .001), to have a higher percentage of black residents (9% vs 6%; P = .013), and to have voted for the Republican presidential candidate in 2016 by a ≥10-point margin (P = .044). In the multivariable model, metropolitan areas of 250 000-1 million population, higher percentage of black residents, and a ≥10-point Republican victory were independently associated with increasing case counts.ConclusionsIncreasing case counts of SARS-CoV-2 in the US during June 2020 were associated with a combination of sociodemographic and political factors. Addressing social disadvantage and differential belief systems that may correspond with political alignment will play a critical role in pandemic control.© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press for the Infectious Diseases Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…