Version 1
: Received: 13 March 2022 / Approved: 15 March 2022 / Online: 15 March 2022 (11:40:15 CET)
Version 2
: Received: 3 May 2022 / Approved: 5 May 2022 / Online: 5 May 2022 (10:20:36 CEST)
Qamar, A. I.; Gronwald, L.; Timmesfeld, N.; Diebner, H. H. Local Socio-Structural Predictors of COVID-19 Incidence in Germany. Frontiers in Public Health, 2022, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.970092.
Qamar, A. I.; Gronwald, L.; Timmesfeld, N.; Diebner, H. H. Local Socio-Structural Predictors of COVID-19 Incidence in Germany. Frontiers in Public Health, 2022, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.970092.
Qamar, A. I.; Gronwald, L.; Timmesfeld, N.; Diebner, H. H. Local Socio-Structural Predictors of COVID-19 Incidence in Germany. Frontiers in Public Health, 2022, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.970092.
Qamar, A. I.; Gronwald, L.; Timmesfeld, N.; Diebner, H. H. Local Socio-Structural Predictors of COVID-19 Incidence in Germany. Frontiers in Public Health, 2022, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.970092.
Abstract
Socioeconomic conditions and social attitudes are known to represent epidemiological determinants. Credible knowledge on socioeconomic driving factors of the COVID-19 epidemic is still incomplete. Based on a linear random effects regression, a predictive model is derived to estimate COVID-19 incidence in German rural districts from local socioeconomic factors and popularity of political parties in terms of their share of vote. Thereby, time series provided by Germany’s public health institute (Robert Koch Institute) of weekly notified 7-day incidences per 100,000 inhabitants per district from the outset of the epidemic in 2020 up to December 1, 2021, have been used to construct the dependent variable. Local socioeconomic conditions including share of votes, retrieved from the Federal Statistical Office of Germany, have been used as potential risk factors. Popularity of the right-wing party Alternative for Germany (AfD) bears a considerable risk of increasing COVID-19 incidence both in terms of predicting the maximum incidences during three epidemic periods and in a time-continuous sense. Thus, districts with high AfD popularity rank on top in the time-average regarding COVID-19 incidence. The impact of the popularity of the Free Democrats (FDP) is markedly intermittent in the course of time showing two pronounced peaks in incidence but also occasional drops. Socioeconomic parameters like per capita income, proportions of protection seekers and social benefit claimants, and educational level have negligible impact. A moderate risk emanates from popularities of the Green Party (GRÜNE) and the Christian Democratic Union (CDU/CSU) compared to the other parties with lowest risk level. In order to effectively combat the COVID-19 epidemic, public health policymakers are well advised to account for social attitudes and behavioural patterns reflected in local popularities of political parties, which are conceived as proper surrogates for these attitudes.
Keywords
COVID-19 incidence; SARS-CoV-2; socioeconomic risk factors; social determinants of health; public health policy
Subject
Public Health and Healthcare, Health Policy and Services
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
