How underlying health conditions and demography
Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2025 3:59 am
Lucy Goodfellow, Research Assistant at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, discusses the impact of socio-economic health inequalities and age during the pandemic.
People living in more deprived areas of England were hit harder by the COVID-19 pandemic in many ways, including higher risk of income and job losses and larger negative impacts of school laos rcs data closures. They were also much more likely to be hospitalised or die from COVID-19 infection. It’s complicated to determine exactly why this is, as so many important factors that might affect infectious disease burden vary by socio-economic status. Older people are more likely to develop severe COVID-19, but it’s important to consider people’s vulnerability to severe disease at all ages, which can depend on underlying health conditions.
Understanding why and how these inequalities occur is key to being able to prevent the most disadvantaged people from being the most vulnerable to another pandemic, or to the seasonal viruses that spread every winter. Using mathematical modelling allows us to consider hypothetical scenarios and isolate the factors we are most interested in. Data on age structure in different areas is available at very detailed levels, and Census 2021 collected which we can separate by age.
People living in more deprived areas of England were hit harder by the COVID-19 pandemic in many ways, including higher risk of income and job losses and larger negative impacts of school laos rcs data closures. They were also much more likely to be hospitalised or die from COVID-19 infection. It’s complicated to determine exactly why this is, as so many important factors that might affect infectious disease burden vary by socio-economic status. Older people are more likely to develop severe COVID-19, but it’s important to consider people’s vulnerability to severe disease at all ages, which can depend on underlying health conditions.
Understanding why and how these inequalities occur is key to being able to prevent the most disadvantaged people from being the most vulnerable to another pandemic, or to the seasonal viruses that spread every winter. Using mathematical modelling allows us to consider hypothetical scenarios and isolate the factors we are most interested in. Data on age structure in different areas is available at very detailed levels, and Census 2021 collected which we can separate by age.