Abstract
Throughout history, the human race has often faced pandemics with substantial numbers of fatalities. As the COVID-19 pandemic has now affected the whole planet, even countries with moderate to strong healthcare support and expenditure have struggled to contain disease transmission and casualties. Countries affected by COVID-19 have different demographics, socioeconomic, and lifestyle health indicators. In this context, it is important to find out to what extent these parametric variations are modulating disease outcomes. To answer this, this study selected demographic, socioeconomic, and health indicators e.g., population density, percentage of the urban population, median age, health expenditure per capita, obesity, diabetes prevalence, alcohol intake, tobacco use, case fatality of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) as independent variables. Countries were grouped according to these variables and influence on dependent variables e.g., COVID-19 positive tests, case fatality, and case recovery rates were statistically analyzed. The results suggested that countries with variable median age had a significantly different outcome on positive test rate (P < 0.01). Both the median age (P = 0.0397) and health expenditure per capita (P = 0.0041) showed a positive relation with case recovery. An increasing number of tests per 100 K of the population showed a positive and negative relationship with the number of positives per 100 K population (P = 0.0001) and the percentage of positive tests (P < 0.0001), respectively. Alcohol intake per capita in liter (P = 0.0046), diabetes prevalence (P = 0.0389), and NCDs mortalities (P = 0.0477) also showed a statistical relation to the case fatality rate. Further analysis revealed that countries with high healthcare expenditure along with high median age and increased urban population showed more case fatality but also had a better recovery rate. Investment in the health sector alone is insufficient in controlling the severity of the pandemic. Intelligent and sustainable healthcare both in urban and rural settings and healthy lifestyle acquired immunity may reduce disease transmission and comorbidity induced fatalities, respectively.
Highlights
There have been rapid demographic changes in most regions and countries of the world since the middle of the last century
The socioeconomic and demographic data, including total population, population density, median age, urban population percentages, male to female ratio, and financial information together with gross domestic product (GDP) in USD, gross national income (GNI) per capita in USD, health expenditure (% of GDP) in USD were attained from the databank of the World Bank [36]
The COVID-19 pandemic shows uneven epidemiological and clinical trends as it spreads to countries with climatic, socioeconomic, lifestyle and demographic variations around the globe
Summary
There have been rapid demographic changes in most regions and countries of the world since the middle of the last century. Urban population, and life expectancy are noticeable examples of such changes [1, 2]. The key objective of these transitions is connected to improving the socioeconomic level of a country’s population. Socioeconomic development influences population health status through the regulation of the environment, lifestyle, and healthcare systems [3]. Socioeconomic variables including population density, gross national income (GNI) per capita, and health expenditure per capita play an important role in achieving sustainable development [4, 5]. The health policies of governments are important and perhaps the most critical aspect of these in ensuring adequate facilities and management in the population [6]
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