The Town-Level Prevalence of Chronic Lung Conditions and Death From COVID-19 Among Older Adults in Connecticut and Rhode Island

Abstract

What is already known on this topic? Chronic lung diseases, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma, are among the top preexisting conditions identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that increase the risk for severe COVID-19 illness and death. What is added by this report?Town-level factors (African American race and Hispanic ethnicity, age ≥65 y, and low educational attainment) were significant predictors of COVID-19 death rates, adding to the current understanding of the impact of social determinants of health on outcomes.What are the implications for public health practice? Public health policy makers could focus on communities reporting high rates of chronic lung conditions among the older adult population to provide more testing and access to vaccinations.

Geospatial Perspectives on the Intersection of Chronic Disease and COVID-19

“…Another lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic is the need for interdisciplinary collaboration across the fields of public health, social science, and GIS&T and across teaching, research, and practice. Only 3 articles in this collection represent collaborations between epidemiologists or other public health professionals and geographers, who often serve as key GIS&T personnel in universities (22,26,31). We recommend that medical and public health investigators include GIS&T experts on their research teams, because they can enhance the translation of complex health findings by contributing to geospatial data acquisition and analytical plans adapted for geospatial data analysis during the earliest phases of research design.…”

“…Two articles in this PCD collection examined whether the prevalence of a chronic disease geographically coincides with the prevalence of COVID-19. In research by Embury et al, subcounty data from San Diego County, California (which includes urban and rural areas), were used to explore whether spatial modeling of chronic disease rates and selected social determinants of health measures could identify communities most vulnerable to COVID-19 (26). The authors divided data on the pandemic into 5 time frames and examined how relationships between social determinants of health, chronic disease, and COVID-19 changed over time.…”

“…The authors divided data on the pandemic into 5 time frames and examined how relationships between social determinants of health, chronic disease, and COVID-19 changed over time. Jansen et al tested whether the prevalence of respiratory illness was associated with COVID-19 mortality rates among older adults in Connecticut and Rhode Island ( 27 ). Educational attainment decreased the strength of the association, demonstrating that our understanding of COVID-19 outcomes can be improved by accounting for selected social determinants of health.…”