Longitudinal Variation of Community-Level Disparities in Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Infections and Deaths in Metropolitan and Non-Metropolitan US Counties

• Activity Number: 88 - Data Visualization in Practice
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 9, 2021 : 10:00 AM to 11:50 AM
• Sponsor: Justice Equity Diversity and Inclusion Outreach Group
• Author(s): Nicholas Pantaleo* and Mengling Liu and Lorna Thorpe and Samrachana Adhikari
• Companies: NYU Langone Health and New York University Grossman School of Medicine and NYU Langone Health and NYU School of Medicine
• Keywords: COVID; disparities; urban; rural; health; community

Abstract

Multiple studies have demonstrated that racial/ethnic (R/E) minority communities in US urban areas were disproportionately affected in the early period of COVID-19 pandemic. As the pandemic expanded into rural areas, the degree to which these disparities persist and the role of community-level determinants of health remains unclear. In this longitudinal analysis, monthly COVID-19 infections and deaths were obtained for large metropolitan, medium/small metropolitan, and non-metropolitan counties (NCHS designation) through September 2020 and modeled using separate negative binomial mixed effects models with random state- and county-level intercepts and non-linear trends. Counties were categorized into quartiles based on the percent of R/E minorities and models were adjusted for several county-level sociodemographic variables. Counties in the highest quartile of R/E minorities experienced significantly higher infection and death rates as compared with counties with the greatest share of white residents. This persisted across geographies for nearly the duration of the analysis period, although the magnitude of the difference was greatest in non-metropolitan counties in summer months.