DeepDive: Examining Determinants of Health Disparities in COVID-19 for Improving Pandemic Health Care

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has severely impacted countries around the world with unprecedented
mortality and economic devastation and has disproportionately and negatively impacted different communities—especially racial
and ethnic minorities who are at a particular disadvantage as they are more likely to be the potential target of COVID-19 infection. Black Americans are especially vulnerable to COVID-19 due to the longstanding history of disadvantage (e.g., long-standing disparities in health outcome). Although some prior research indicates high risk and vulnerability of the elderly and patients with underlying co-morbidities, little research paid attention to tracing the social and structural health determinants that yield disparities in this pandemic. In this research, we propose DeepDive to identify diverse determinants (including the structural, social, and constructural determinants) of health disparities in COVID-19 pandemic. We provide a thorough analysis of health disparities based on multiple COVID-19 datasets and examine the structural, social, and constructural health determinants to assist in ascertaining why disparities (in racial and ethnic minorities who are particularly disadvantaged) occur in infection and death rates due to COVID-19 pandemic. Extensive experimental results show the effectiveness of DeepDive. The research provides new strategies for determining these health determinants with a goal to improve pandemic health care.