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. 2022 Oct 28;19(21):14066.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph192114066.

How Cumulative Statistics Can Mislead: The Temporal Dynamism of Sex Disparities in COVID-19 Mortality in New York State

Ann Caroline Danielsen  1 , Marion Boulicault  2   3 , Annika Gompers  4 , Tamara Rushovich  5 , Katharine M N Lee  6 , Sarah S Richardson  7   8
Affiliations

How Cumulative Statistics Can Mislead: The Temporal Dynamism of Sex Disparities in COVID-19 Mortality in New York State

Ann Caroline Danielsen et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Overall, men have died from COVID-19 at slightly higher rates than women. But cumulative estimates of mortality by sex may be misleading. We analyze New York State COVID-19 mortality by sex between March 2020 and August 2021, demonstrating that 72.7% of the total difference in the number of COVID-19 deaths between women and men was accrued in the first seven weeks of the pandemic. Thus, while the initial surge in COVID-19 mortality was characterized by stark sex disparities, this article shows that disparities were greatly attenuated in subsequent phases of the pandemic. Investigating changes over time could help illuminate how contextual factors contributed to the development of apparent sex disparities in COVID-19 outcomes.

Keywords: COVID-19; gender; sex disparities.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Cumulative excess male COVID-19 deaths by week as a proportion of total excess male COVID-19 deaths during the study period (14 March 2020–28 August 2021).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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