The Association Between Socioeconomic Status, Essential Worker Status, and COVID-19 Case Counts

Nicolas M. Del Pino

Mentor: Dr. Jacky M. Jennings

Center for Child and Community Health Research, Johns Hopkins University

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has ravaged the entire planet and in particular the United States. At the time of this writing, the U.S. is reporting around 3000 deaths by COVID-19 per day. Further inspections of the data reveal that minorities and those of lower socioeconomic status (SES) are dying at disproportionately higher rates than white Americans and those of high SES; a pattern that exists with respect to most diseases. However, the data for the 2020 SARS-CoV-2 is further muddled by the addition of a new factor: essential worker status. Essential workers are people whose jobs are essential to upholding critical infrastructure operations. As a result, they are more likely to be exposed to a disease. The objective of this analysis was to determine the association between the cumulative case count of reported cases of COVID-19 and two factors: the proportion of essential workers and the proportion of persons living in poverty by zip code in Maryland. Using data from the American Community Survey and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, I performed statistical analyses testing these associations. I found that although poverty is not strongly related to case counts, essential worker status, depending on the industry, can have either a positive or negative association with case counts. This research gives us insight into how to prioritize the U.S.’s resources when trying to stop the spread of the disease.