{"doi":"10.33790/jphip1100187","title":"COVID-19 Mortality, Diabetes, and Obesity: The Impact of Health Inequity","abstract":"Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, minorities experienced the greatest burden of infection and death. These disparities were studied and related to the disproportionate distribution of comorbidities among minority, especially diabetes and obesity in non-Hispanic Blacks. Additionally, health equity has been linked to health disparities of chronic disease and COVID-19 infection. The same effect of the social determinants of health on chronic diseases in minorities is now seen in the COVID-19 pandemic. This study, which is a follow-up of research in the early stages of the pandemic, is focused on determining if the disparity in mortality is still present in the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected for state health departments in Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan and Mississippi on mortality due to COVID-19 infection. Mortality and case-fatality rates were collected for each state and selected counties in the study states. Mortality and case-fatality rates were determined according to race, comparing non-Hispanic Whites with non-Hispanic Blacks. The prevalence of diabetes and obesity was evaluated in relation to mortality and case-fatality rates. Results of this study indicate that the disparity between non-Hispanic Whites and non-Hispanic Blacks continues to be observed in the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Non-Hispanic Blacks, in the study states and counties, have higher mortality and case-fatality rates than non-Hispanic Whites. This difference ranges from nearly 1.2% greater in Georgia to 71% greater in Michigan. In the study counties with diabetes prevalence of ≥12.0% and obesity prevalence of ≥38.0% had the highest mortality rates. This study indicates that the effect of health inequities must be addressed for both chronic diseases and COVID-19.","journal":"Journal of Public Health Issues and Practices","year":2021,"id":212494,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9548,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":803194,"name":"Peggy A. Honoré","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":803195,"name":"Katrina Kellum","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":803193,"name":"Peter J. Fos","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":29,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:52:27.434608Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}