Abstract
To date, COVID-19 case rates are disproportionately higher in Black and Latinx communities across the US, leading to more hospitalizations, and deaths in those communities. These differences in case rates are evident in comparisons of Chicago neighborhoods with differing race and/or ethnicities of their residents. Disparities could be due to neighborhoods with more adverse health outcomes associated with poverty and other social determinants of health experiencing higher prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection or due to greater morbidity and mortality resulting from equivalent SARS-CoV-2 infection prevalence. We surveyed five pairs of adjacent ZIP codes in Chicago with disparate COVID-19 case rates for highly specific and quantitative serologic evidence of any prior infection by SARS-CoV-2 to compare with their disparate COVID-19 case rates. Dried blood spot samples were self-collected at home by internet-recruited participants in summer 2020, shortly after Chicago's first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Pairs of neighboring ZIP codes with very different COVID-19 case rates had similar seropositivity rates for anti–SARS-CoV-2 receptor binding domain IgG antibodies. Overall, these findings of comparable exposure to SARS-CoV-2 across neighborhoods with very disparate COVID-19 case rates are consistent with social determinants of health, and the co-morbidities related to them, driving differences in COVID-19 rates across neighborhoods.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 44-51 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | Annals of Epidemiology |
Volume | 66 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Feb 2022 |
Funding
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant No. 2035114) . Additional support was provided by the Northwestern University Office of Research, the Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (UL1TR001422), the Third Coast Center for AIDS Research (P30 AI117943). the National Institute on Drug Abuse (U01DA036939-06S1) and a generous gift from Dr Andrew Senyei and Noni Senyei. The funding sources had no role in the study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, or writing of the report. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant No. 2035114). Additional support was provided by the Northwestern University Office of Research, the Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (UL1TR001422), the Third Coast Center for AIDS Research (P30 AI117943). the National Institute on Drug Abuse (U01DA036939-06S1) and a generous gift from Dr Andrew Senyei and Noni Senyei. The funding sources had no role in the study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, or writing of the report. Declaration of interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Keywords
- Covid-19
- SARS-CoV-2
- disparities
- neighborhood
- race
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Epidemiology