A study of nearly 400 pregnant women in New York City is among the first to show that poverty and crowded homes increase the risk of becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The study may help explain why African-Americans and Hispanics are disproportionately at risk for contracting the virus, the researchers said.
In the study, the researchers examined the relationships between SARS-CoV-2 infection and neighborhood characteristics in 396 women who gave birth at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center or New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital during the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak in New York City. Since March 22, 2020, all of the women admitted to the hospitals for delivery were tested for the virus.
The researchers found that the strongest predictor of COVID-19 infection among these women was residence in a neighborhood where overcrowded households were common. Women who lived in a neighborhood with high household membership were three times more likely to be infected with the virus.
Neighborhood poverty also appeared to play a role in infection risk. Women were twice as likely to develop COVID-19 if they lived in neighborhoods with a high poverty rate. However, the researchers did not find a link between urban density, or population density, and infection risk. The study, partly funded by NHLBI, appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association.