Health and poverty factors influencing COVID-19 mortality in Mexican rural

ABSTRACT

The pandemic caused by COVID-19 has unleashed an economic crisis that mainly affects people with less income. The mortality of COVID-19 depends on various social, cultural and physical factors of individuals;studies have shown that large-scale disasters such as the pandemic affect the health of marginalized communities. Rural communities in Mexico are vulnerable and need to be studied to reduce COVID-19 mortality. Therefore, the objective of this research is to analyze some health and poverty factors influencing an increase in COVID-19 mortality in Mexican rural communities. The research is quantitative, data from January 1 to October 2, 2020 from the Direccion Nacional de Epidemiologia were used to carry out this analysis;a total of 188 municipalities in Mexico were analyzed that are considered rural according to INEGI, with these data a predictive mortality model was elaborated. The most important results show that the coefficients of the log-linear regression models of some health and poverty factors that influence COVID-19 mortality are Intubated (4.03 for men over 80), Diabetes (3.19 for men under 60), Other Complications (3.36 and 4.75 for men over 80 and under 60 respectively), Another case (0.57, 0.73 and 0.65 for women per age group), similarly the coefficients of poverty are Lack of Health Services (0.72 and 0.41 for men and women over 80, respectively). It is concluded that in rural communities age is the most important factor for the increase in mortality, although it is higher in men over 80;it becomes evident that diabetes influences mortality in all age groups.