Zip Codes Mattered During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The new multi-hospital observational study based in Michigan published today in the Annals of Internal Medicine, shows where you live indicated future COVID-19 status.

Hospitalized patients with COVID-19 from socially vulnerable neighborhoods presented with greater illness severity and required more intensive treatment.

But once hospitalized, they did not experience differences in-hospital mortality or discharge disposition.

'Our findings instead suggest that patients from socially vulnerable neighborhoods may present to the hospital in a sicker state, leading to more intensive care in the hospital.'

'However, we find that once patients were hospitalized, neighborhood social factors did not influence mortality and discharge disposition outcomes,' concluded these researchers.