Demographic and trend analysis of COVID-19 test results of Boone County, Missouri

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a deep influence on American life. However, the burden of the COVID-19 pandemic has not been distributed equally among members of a population based on their demographic features. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether sex, age, race/ethnicity, and religion were associated with COVID-19 testing and positivity rates in Boone County, Missouri for 22 months period (March 2020 to December 2021) of the pandemic. We analyzed the data using age distribution histograms with each demographic feature. We also computed two-way delta tables to highlight our study findings. These tables show that males with 0.012 delta percentage are significantly more likely to test COVID positive than females with -0.015 delta percentage. Black or African American "NONE" of 0.0072 delta percentage are significantly more likely to test COVID positive than White individuals of -0.0075 delta percentage. Our study results supported the hypothesis that males and minority races such as Black or African American and All-Other are more likely to test positive for COVID-19. Additionally, we analyzed the data using the trend analysis graphs with each demographic feature across a collection of defined epochs of key events, such as vaccine release, delta variant, vaccine boosters, and omicron. Our study results supported the hypothesis that males and minority races such as Black or African Americans and All-Other are more likely to have a higher COVID-19 positivity rate across our defined epochs. Additionally, we explore interesting deviations between demographics within various epochs.