County-Level Risk Factors for Texas County COVID-19 Infection and Death Rates

• Activity Number: 133 - Statistical Issues in Environmental Epidemiology and Pharmacoepidemiology
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 9, 2021 : 1:30 PM to 3:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistics in Epidemiology
• Author(s): Michael George Machiorlatti*
• Companies: University of Texas Rio Grande Valley - School of Medicine
• Keywords: County; Covid-19; Infection; Death Rates; Texas

Abstract

There have been close to 3 million COVID-19 cases within the United States to date. Variability for infection and death between by location and time within the US convey that both are associated with infection and death rates. In order to explore the underlying phenomenon contributing to this variability, we focus on the state of Texas and used Texas county data on Covid-19 infection and death rates and auxiliary data such as age, race, gender, diabetes and obesity rates, temperature, humidity, median household income, metropolitan or rural designation, and poverty rates to quantify what confers greater risk for total infection and death rates at a county-level. Data from the US Census Bureau, Texas Department of State Health Service, Texas Department of Agriculture and the CDC were used to gather data for this study. We found prevalence of comorbid conditions such as obesity and diabetes and sociodemographic characteristics were associated with COVID-19 infection and death rates. Limitations to the study include different stay-at-home policies by county and inability to incorporate individual level behavior which could potentially add to differences in rates by county.