The Epidemiology of COVID-19 by Race/Ethnicity in Oklahoma City–County, Oklahoma (12 March 2020–31 May 2021)

Kapil Khadka, Kunle Adesigbin, Jessica Beetch, Katrin Kuhn and Aaron Wendelboe
Additional contact information
Kapil Khadka: Epidemiology Division, Oklahoma City–County Health Department, 2700 NE 63rd Street, Oklahoma City, OK 73111, USA
Kunle Adesigbin: Epidemiology Division, Oklahoma City–County Health Department, 2700 NE 63rd Street, Oklahoma City, OK 73111, USA
Jessica Beetch: Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Hudson College of Public Health, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, 801 NE 13th Street, Oklahoma City, OK 73104, USA
Katrin Kuhn: Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Hudson College of Public Health, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, 801 NE 13th Street, Oklahoma City, OK 73104, USA
Aaron Wendelboe: Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Hudson College of Public Health, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, 801 NE 13th Street, Oklahoma City, OK 73104, USA

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 14, 1-11

Abstract: We aimed to better understand the racially-/ethnically-specific COVID-19-related outcomes, with respect to time, to respond more effectively to emerging variants. Surveillance data from Oklahoma City–County (12 March 2020–31 May 2021) were used to summarize COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, deaths, and COVID-19 vaccination status by racial/ethnic group and ZIP code. We estimated racially-/ethnically-specific daily hospitalization rates, the proportion of cases hospitalized, and disease odds ratios (OR) adjusting for sex, age, and the presence of at least one comorbidity. Hot spot analysis was performed using normalized values of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths generated from incidence rates per 100,000 population. During the study period, there were 103,030 confirmed cases, 3457 COVID-19-related hospitalizations, and 1500 COVID-19-related deaths. The daily 7-day average hospitalization rate for Hispanics peaked earlier than other groups and reached a maximum (3.0/100,000) in July 2020. The proportion of cases hospitalized by race/ethnicity was 6.09% among non-Hispanic Blacks, 5.48% among non-Hispanic Whites, 3.66% among Hispanics, 3.43% among American Indians, and 2.87% among Asian/Pacific Islanders. COVID-19 hot spots were identified in ZIP codes with minority communities. The Hispanic population experienced the first surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, while non-Hispanic Blacks ultimately bore the highest burden of COVID-19-related hospitalizations and deaths.

Keywords: SARS-CoV-2; public health surveillance; vulnerability; time-varying; public health response (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/14/8571/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/14/8571/ (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:19:y:2022:i:14:p:8571-:d:862373

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 ().