Food Security and Lifestyle Vulnerabilities as Systemic Influencers of COVID-19 Survivability
Main Article Content
Abstract
Research on the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed some previously concealed links between underlying health conditions like obesity, diabetes, and heart disease and COVID-19 fatalities. This raises questions about the importance of healthy diets and lifestyles for the survivability of COVID-19 infections and possibly other infectious diseases. We statistically examine the connections between social determinants of health, reported health outcomes, and COVID-19 survivability using available data from over 3000 counties across the United States. Our study shows that preexisting conditions such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease reduce the observed survivability of COVID-19 prior to the broad availability of vaccines. Furthermore, we test several of the social determinants of health identified in the literature and find them to be statistically correlated with negative health outcomes with the expected sign. For example, improved food security and better access to exercise correlate with lower observed diabetes rates and improved cardiovascular health. Our findings also indicate the positive impact of food assistance programs like the so-called food stamps program of the United States Department of Agriculture, however, some of our findings differ between rural and urban counties across the United States. Based on our findings, we estimate that twenty-two-thousand (22,000) lives could have been saved in 2020 if residents in all U.S. counties were as healthy as those in the healthiest counties found in our sample. We further estimate that reducing food insecurity, and improving access to exercise could have prevented ten-thousand-eight-hundred (10,800) fatalities attributed to COVID-19 in 2020.
Article Details
The Medical Research Archives grants authors the right to publish and reproduce the unrevised contribution in whole or in part at any time and in any form for any scholarly non-commercial purpose with the condition that all publications of the contribution include a full citation to the journal as published by the Medical Research Archives.
References
2. Tison G., Avram R., Kuhar P., Abreau S., Marcus G., Pletcher M. Worldwide effect of COVID-19 on physical activity: a descriptive study. Annals of Internal Medicine. 2020;173(9):767–70. https://doi.org/10.7326/M20-2665
3. Devereux S., Béné C., Hoddinott J. Conceptualizing COVID-19’s impact on household food security. Food Sec. 2020;12(4):769–72. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-020-01085-0.
4. Coleman-Jensen, A., Rabbitt, M., Gregory, C. Washington, DC; Household Food Security in the United States in 2020. United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. 2020. ERR-298.
5. O’Hara, S. and Toussaint, E. Food Access in Crisis: food security and COVID-19. Ecological
Economics. 2021;180(106859)
6. Toussaint, E. and O’Hara, S. Food, Fitness and Fatalities. ABA Human Rights Magazine.
2020;46(1).
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publi ations/humanrightsmagazinehoe/rbgs-impact-on-civil-rights/food-fitness-and-fatalities/
7. Popkin, B., Du, S., Green, W., Beck, M., Algaith, T., Herbst, C., Alsukait, R., Alluhidan, M., Alazemi, N., and Shekar, M. Individuals with Obesity and Covid-19: A Global Perspective on the Epidemiology and Biological Relationships. Obesity Reviews. 2020;21(11): e13128.
8. Srivastava, K. Association Between Covid-19 and Cardiovascular Disease. IJC Heart & Vasculature 2020;29: 100583. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcha.2020.100583.
9. Holman, N., Knighton, P., Kar, P., O’Keefe, J., Curley, M., Weaver, A., and Barron, E. Risk Factors for Covid-19-Related Mortality in People with Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes in England: A Population-Based Cohort Study. The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology 2020;8(10): 823–33. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/S2213-8587(20)30271-0.
10. Reyes, M.V. The Disproportional Impact of COVID-19 on African Americans. Health Hum Rights. 2020 Dec; 22(2): 299–307.
11. Chatters L.M., Taylor H.O., Taylor R.J. Older black Americans during COVID-19: race and age double jeopardy. Health Edu Behav. 2020;47(6):855–60. https://doi.org/10.1177/1090198120965513.
12. Braveman, P., Gottlieb, L. The Social Determinants of Health: It's Time to Consider the Causes of the Causes. Public Health Report 2014. Vol. 129. Supplement 2. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/00333549141291S206
13. World Health Organization. Closing the Gap in a Generation: Health Equity through Action on the Social Determinants of Health. Geneva. 2008. ISBN-10 : 9241563702
14. Braveman, P., Egerter, S., Williams, D. The Social Determinants of Health: Coming of Age. Annu. Rev. Public Health 2011. 32:381–98
15. Marmot, M., Allen, J. Social Determinants of Health Equity. American Journal of Public Health (AJPH). Sept. 2014. https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2014.302200
16. Constandt B., Thibaut E., De Bosscher V., Scheerder J., Ricour M., Willem A. Exercising in Times of Lockdown: An Analysis of the Impact of COVID-19 on Levels and Patterns of Exercise among Adults in Belgium. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020;17(11): 4144. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17114144.
17. Lopez-Bueno R., Calatayud J., Andersen L., Balsalobre-Fernandez C., Casaria J., Smith L. Immediate impact of the COVID-19 confinement on physical activity levels in Spanish adults. Sustainability. 2020;12(14): 5708. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12145708.
18. Maugeri G, Castrogiovanni P, Battaglia G, Pippi R, D’Agata V, Palma A. The impact of physical activity on psychological health during COVID- 19 pandemic in Italy. Heliyon. 2020;6: 4315.
19. Stanton R, To QG, Khalesi S, Williams SL, Alley SJ, Thwaite TL, Depression, anxiety, and stress during COVID-19: Associations with changes in physical activity, sleep, tobacco, and alcohol use in Australian adults. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020;17: 4065.
20. Harrison, Monroe-Lord, L., Carson, A., Jean-Baptiste, A.-M., Phoenix, J., Jackson, P., Harris, B., Asongwed, E., Richardson, M. COVID-19 pandemic-related changes in wellness behavior among older Americans. BMC Public Health 2021; 21: 755 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-10825-6
21. University of Wisconsin. County Health Rankings and Roadmaps. University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. 2021; https://www.countyhealthrankings.org/
22. United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Interactive Atlas of Heart Disease and Stroke. 2021; US CDC https://nccd.cdc.gov/DHDSPAtlas/?state=County.
23. Haris, R., Khan, M., Siddiqi, T., Usman, M., Shah, N., Goyal, A., Khan, S., Mookadam, F., Krasuski, R., and Ahmed, H. Association Between Obesity and Cardiovascular Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Mendelian Randomization Studies.” JAMA Network Open 2018;1(7): e183788–e183788. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetw orkopen.2018.3788.
24. Rippe, J.M., Crossley, S., and Ringer, R. Obesity as a Chronic Disease: Modern Medical and Lifestyle Management. J Am Diet Assoc.1998;98(10 Suppl 2): S9–15.
25. Man, A., Li, H., Xia, N. Impact of Lifestyles (Diet and Exercise) on Vascular Health: Oxidative Stress and Endothelial Function. Hindawi Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity. 2020; (1496462): 22 https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/1496462
26. Casas, R., Castro-Barquero, S., Estruch, R., and Sacanella, E. Nutrition and Cardiovascular Health. Int. Journal of Molecular Sciences. 2018;19 (12). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms19123988.
27. Lindström, J., Louheranta, A., Mannelin, M., Rastas, M., Salminen, V., Eriksson, J., Uusitupa, M. and Tuomilehto, J. The Finnish Diabetes Prevention Study. Diabetes Care 2003; 26(12): 3230–6. https://doi.org/10.2337/diacare.26.12.3230.
28. Farman, M., Ghaffar, K. The Impact of Diet and Exercise on Diabetic Patients. J Med Biology 2020; 2(1): 25-30
29. O’Hara, S. The Five Pillars of Economic Development: A study of a sustainable future for Wards 7 and 8 in Washington DC. Research Report. University of the District of Columbia. 2018; https://docs.udc.edu/causes/Five-Pillars-DC-Final-05-2018.pdf