Community-Level Factors Associated with COVID-19 Cases and Testing Equity in King County, Washington

Edmund Seto, Esther Min, Carolyn Ingram, Cummings Bj and Stephanie A. Farquhar
Additional contact information
Edmund Seto: Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
Esther Min: Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
Carolyn Ingram: Bordeaux School of Public Health, University of Bordeaux, 33076 Bordeaux, France
Cummings Bj: Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
Stephanie A. Farquhar: Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 24, 1-13

Abstract: Individual-level Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) case data suggest that certain populations may be more impacted by the pandemic. However, few studies have considered the communities from which positive cases are prevalent, and the variations in testing rates between communities. In this study, we assessed community factors that were associated with COVID-19 testing and test positivity at the census tract level for the Seattle, King County, Washington region at the summer peak of infection in July 2020. Multivariate Poisson regression was used to estimate confirmed case counts, adjusted for testing numbers, which were associated with socioeconomic status (SES) indicators such as poverty, educational attainment, transportation cost, as well as with communities with high proportions of people of color. Multivariate models were also used to examine factors associated with testing rates, and found disparities in testing for communities of color and communities with transportation cost barriers. These results demonstrate the ability to identify tract-level indicators of COVID-19 risk and specific communities that are most vulnerable to COVID-19 infection, as well as highlight the ongoing need to ensure access to disease control resources, including information and education, testing, and future vaccination programs in low-SES and highly diverse communities.

Keywords: COVID-19 testing; disparities; health inequities; socioeconomic status; COVID-19 risk; COVID-19 positivity; environmental justice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/24/9516/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/24/9516/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:24:p:9516-:d:464612

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().