Risk Factors for COVID-19: A Systematic Mapping Study

Abstract

Introduction: COVID-19 has affected people in several countries around the world. They experience respiratory symptoms that can be mild, moderate, or severe. Several reviews that characterize the risk factors of COVID-19 have been performed, but most address only risk factors associated with medical conditions, ignoring environmental and sociodemographic-socioeconomic factors.

Objective: This study aims at characterizing different risk factors in the published literature that influence contagion by COVID-19.

Methods: The review consists of three stages, including a systematic mapping with studies found in the Scopus database, an analysis of results, and finally the identification of relevant COVID-19 risk factors.

Results: A map of studies id provided considering two main groups: the type of research and context. Most studies consider risk factors associated with medical conditions, while research on other factors is scarce.

Conclusions: Medical conditions such as diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and factors such as age and sex, appear to be the ones that increase the risk of contracting COVID-19. Further research is needed on environmental, sociodemographic, and socioeconomic risk factors.

Keywords: Covid-19; environment; health; risk factors; sociodemographic; socioeconomic.