Characteristics,Comorbidities, and Data Gaps for Coronavirus Disease Deaths,Tennessee, USA |
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| Authors: | John James Parker Rany Octaria Miranda D Smith Samantha J Chao Mary Beth Davis Celia Goodson Jon Warkentin Denise Werner Mary-Margaret A Fill |
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| Institution: | Tennessee Department of Health, Nashville, Tennessee, USA (J.J. Parker, R. Octaria, M.D. Smith, S.J. Chao, M.B. Davis, C. Goodson, J. Warkentin, D. Werner, M.-M.A. Fill);Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville (J.J. Parker) |
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| Abstract: | As of March 2021, coronavirus disease (COVID-19) had led to >500,000 deaths in the United States, and the state of Tennessee had the fifth highest number of cases per capita. We reviewed the Tennessee Department of Health COVID-19 surveillance and chart-abstraction data during March 15‒August 15, 2020. Patients who died from COVID-19 were more likely to be older, male, and Black and to have underlying conditions (hereafter comorbidities) than case-patients who survived. We found 30.4% of surviving case-patients and 20.3% of deceased patients had no comorbidity information recorded. Chart-abstraction captured a higher proportion of deceased case-patients with >1 comorbidity (96.3%) compared with standard surveillance deaths (79.0%). Chart-abstraction detected higher rates of each comorbidity except for diabetes, which had similar rates among standard surveillance and chart-abstraction. Investing in public health data collection infrastructure will be beneficial for the COVID-19 pandemic and future disease outbreaks. |
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| Keywords: | coronavirus disease COVID-19 severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 SARS-CoV-2 coronaviruses viruses respiratory infections ethnic groups comorbidities underlying conditions mortality rates epidemiology population characteristics public health surveillance Black patients White patients Hispanic patients zoonoses Tennessee United States |
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