TY - JOUR AU - Alencar do Nascimento, Cícera Maria AU - Freire De Souza, Carlos Dornels AU - de Oliveira Silva, Lucas Emanuel AU - Oliveira Silva, Wedja AU - Amaro Barbosa, Nicolas AU - Feliciano do Carmo, Rodrigo AU - de Lima Andrade, Esdras AU - Henrique de Oliveira Teixeira, Sérgio AU - José Matos Rocha, Thiago PY - 2022/08/30 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - COVID-19 risk areas associated with social vulnerability in northeastern Brazil: an ecological study in 2020 JF - The Journal of Infection in Developing Countries JA - J Infect Dev Ctries VL - 16 IS - 08 SE - Coronavirus Pandemic DO - 10.3855/jidc.15214 UR - https://jidc.org/index.php/journal/article/view/36099371 SP - 1285-1293 AB - <p>Introduction: COVID-19 is a major public health concern in this century. The causative agent SARS-CoV-2, is highly contagious and spreads continuously across territories. Spatial analysis is of enormous importance in the process of understanding the disease and its transmission mechanisms. We aimed to identify the risk areas for COVID-19 and analyze their association with social vulnerability in Maceió, Alagoas. The study was conducted in 2020.</p><p>Methodology: This is an ecological study to evaluate the incidence, mortality and case fatality rate of COVID-19 and their relationship with 12 indicators of human development and social vulnerability. Multivariate and spatial statistics were applied. A 95% confidence interval and a 5% confidence level were considered.</p><p>Results: The spatial scan statistic revealed the existence of six high-risk clusters for the incidence of COVID-19. The regression model showed that social indicators, such as literacy of people, residents of private households, households with more than four residents, and resident brown population, were associated with COVID-19 transmission in Maceió-AL. The disease affected localities whose populations are exposed to a context of intense socioeconomic vulnerability.</p><p>Conclusions: Based on the results, it is necessary to adopt measures that take into account the social determinants of health in order to minimize the damage caused by the pandemic.</p> ER -