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[Preprint]. 2025 May 16:2025.05.14.25327577.
doi: 10.1101/2025.05.14.25327577.

Obesity's Disparate Impact on COVID-19 Outcomes in Asian American Patients with Cancer

Ryan H Nguyen  1 , Pankil K Shah  2 , Sanjay Mishra  3   4   5 , Julie Fu  6 , Sonya Reid  3 , Jessica E Hawley  7 , Clara Hwang  8 , Sunny R K Singh  8   9 , Na Tosha Gatson  10   11 , Narjust Florez  12 , David Chism  13 , Oscar K Serrano  14 , Babar Bashir  15 , Gayathri Nagaraj  16 , Rana R Mckay  17 , Brandon Hayes-Lattin  18 , Vadim S Koshkin  19 , Jared D Acoba  20 , Olga Zamulko  21 , Christoper L Geiger  22 , Jeremy L Warner  3   4   5 , Dimpy P Shah  2 , Neeta K Venepalli  23
Affiliations

Obesity's Disparate Impact on COVID-19 Outcomes in Asian American Patients with Cancer

Ryan H Nguyen et al. medRxiv. .

Abstract

Data on COVID-19 outcomes in Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) are lacking. We analyzed data from 6,244 patients from the COVID-19 and Cancer Consortium, including 6.0% AAPI patients, to examine disparities in outcomes following acute COVID-19. Despite AAPI patients having lower median BMI than non-Hispanic White (NHW) patients and higher diabetes rates, both groups showed similar 30-day mortality and COVID-19 outcomes. In multivariable analyses, morbid obesity (BMI >35 kg/m2) in AAPI patients was associated with significantly higher 30-day mortality (OR 4.96; 95% CI 1.78 - 13.88) and COVID-19 severity (OR 2.6; 95% CI 1.26 - 5.35); underscoring the differential impact of obesity in AAPI patients.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Figures

Figure 1:
Figure 1:
Forest plot of model coefficients for 30-day mortality and ordinal severity scale stratified by race
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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