Vulnerable communities twice as likely to catch COVID-19

When a disaster like a hurricane or a wildfire strikes an area, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention compile data on the social vulnerability of victims. Those vulnerabilities include things like racial minority status, limited English-speaking ability, access to transportation, housing and disability status. The social vulnerability index of an area is a measure of a community’s resilience, or how quickly residents are able to bounce back from disasters or disease outbreaks.

Unlike a hurricane or wildfire, the coronavirus has impacted the entire country, which gives epidemiology researchers a chance to analyze a broad section of the country to find trends.

“Not surprisingly the social vulnerability characteristics were positively associated with increased COVID-19 case counts,” said Jennifer Horney, professor and founding director of the University of Delaware’s epidemiology program.

Different groups were at higher risk of infection depending on the region of the country.

“In some of the early states, like in the Northeast, where we had high case counts early on, minority racial, ethnic groups and people with limited English were far more likely to be infected,” she said.

On the West Coast, in Washington and Oregon, factors like household composition and disabilities were more likely to play a role in who was more at risk of infection. Along the Gulf Coast, housing and transportation needs were most predictive of who would get the virus.

Horney’s work with Dr. Ibraheem Karaye, a postdoctoral researcher, was published in June in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. The study could help identify areas where more resources or public health interventions could reduce social vulnerabilities and improve the community’s resilience for the next disaster. There’s also immediate applications for the coronavirus response, like where to put more testing sites.