Table_1_Effectiveness of the COVID-19 Community Vulnerability Index in explaining COVID-19 deaths.docx

ObjectivesTo explore the effectiveness of a COVID-19 specific social vulnerability index, we examined the relative importance of four COVID-19 specific themes and three general themes of the COVID-19 Community Vulnerability Index (CCVI) in explaining COVID-19 mortality rates in Cook County, Illinois.MethodsWe counted COVID-19 death records from the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office, geocoded incident addresses by census tracts, and appended census tracts' CCVI scores. Negative binomial regression and Random Forest were used to examine the relative importance of CCVI themes in explaining COVID-19 mortality rates.ResultsCOVID-19 specific Themes 6 (High risk environments) and 4 (Epidemiological factors) were the most important in explaining COVID-19 mortality (incidence rate ratio (IRR) = 6.80 and 6.44, respectively), followed by a general Theme 2 (Minority status & language, IRR = 3.26).ConclusionThe addition of disaster-specific indicators may improve the accuracy of social vulnerability indices. However, variance for Theme 6 was entirely from the long-term care resident indicator, as the other two indicators were constant at the census tract level. Thus, CCVI should be further refined to improve its effectiveness in identifying vulnerable communities. Also, building a more robust local data infrastructure is critical to understanding the vulnerabilities of local places.

研究目标：为探讨COVID-19特定社会脆弱性指数的有效性，本研究评估了COVID-19社区脆弱性指数（CCVI）中四个特定于COVID-19的主题以及三个一般主题在解释伊利诺伊州库克县COVID-19死亡率方面的相对重要性。研究方法：统计了库克县法医办公室的COVID-19死亡记录，通过人口普查区对事件地址进行地理编码，并附加了人口普查区的CCVI评分。采用负二项回归和随机森林方法检验了CCVI主题在解释COVID-19死亡率方面的相对重要性。研究结果：在解释COVID-19死亡率方面，特定于COVID-19的主题6（高风险环境）和主题4（流行病学因素）最为重要（发生率比（IRR）分别为6.80和6.44），其次是第二个一般主题（少数民族身份与语言，IRR为3.26）。结论：加入灾害特定指标可能提高社会脆弱性指数的准确性。然而，主题6的方差完全来自长期护理居民指标，因为其他两个指标在人口普查区层面保持恒定。因此，CCVI应进一步优化，以提高其在识别脆弱社区方面的有效性。同时，建立更健全的本地数据基础设施对于理解本地地区的脆弱性至关重要。