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. 2020 Sep 22:8:571808.
doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2020.571808. eCollection 2020.

Assessing the Impact of Neighborhood Socioeconomic Characteristics on COVID-19 Prevalence Across Seven States in the United States

Elham Hatef  1 , Hsien-Yen Chang  1 , Christopher Kitchen  1 , Jonathan P Weiner  1 , Hadi Kharrazi  1
Affiliations

Assessing the Impact of Neighborhood Socioeconomic Characteristics on COVID-19 Prevalence Across Seven States in the United States

Elham Hatef et al. Front Public Health. .

Abstract

Introduction: The spread of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) across the United States has highlighted the long-standing nationwide health inequalities with socioeconomically challenged communities experiencing a higher burden of the disease. We assessed the impact of neighborhood socioeconomic characteristics on the COVID-19 prevalence across seven selected states (i.e., Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia). Methods: We obtained cumulative COVID-19 cases reported at the neighborhood aggregation level by Departments of Health in selected states on two dates (May 3rd, 2020, and May 30th, 2020) and assessed the correlation between the COVID-19 prevalence and neighborhood characteristics. We developed Area Deprivation Index (ADI), a composite measure to rank neighborhoods by their socioeconomic characteristics, using the 2018 US Census American Community Survey. The higher ADI rank represented more disadvantaged neighborhoods. Results: After controlling for age, gender, and the square mileage of each community we identified Zip-codes with higher ADI (more disadvantaged neighborhoods) in Illinois and Maryland had higher COVID-19 prevalence comparing to zip-codes across the country and in the same state with lower ADI (less disadvantaged neighborhoods) using data on May 3rd. We detected the same pattern across all states except for Florida and Virginia using data on May 30th, 2020. Conclusion: Our study provides evidence that not all Americans are at equal risk for COVID-19. Socioeconomic characteristics of communities appear to be associated with their COVID-19 susceptibility, at least among those study states with high rates of disease.

Keywords: COVID-19; coronavirus disease 2019; health disparities; neighborhood characteristics; social determinants of health.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Change in the COVID-19 Prevalence and Correlation with ADI Over Time–Percentage of zip-codes with any COVID-19 cases (blue dotted line), COVID-19 prevalence (red dotted line), and the correlation between COVID-19 prevalence and ADI (black solid line) from April 20th to May 30th, 2020 across five selected states. AZ, Arizona; FL, Florida; IL, Illinois; MD, Maryland; SC, South Carolina. Zip-code level data were not available for North Carolina and Virginia during this period to perform longitudinal analysis.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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