Journal of Health Sciences & Surveillance System

Correlation between Lifestyle Factors and COVID-19 Indices: An Ecological Study

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Fatemeh Rezaei 1
Mousa Ghelichi-Ghojogh 2
Farzaneh Mobasheri 3
Sanaz Amiri 4
Elahe Piraee 5
Seyed Sina Dehghani 6
Amir Hossein Hassani 6
Kimia Jokari 4
Alireza Mirahmadizadeh 7

1 Department of Epidemiology, Zoonoses Research Center, Jahrom University of Medical Sciences, Jahrom, Iran

2 Neonatal and Children’s Research Center, Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, School of Health, Faculty of Health, Golestan University of Medical Sciences, Gorgan, Iran

3 Department of Epidemiology, Research Center for Social Determinants of Health, Jahrom University of Medical Sciences, Jahrom, Iran

4 Department of Epidemiology, Student Research Committee, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran

5 Department of Epidemiology, Center for Healthcare Data Modeling Departments of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran

6 School of Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran

7 Department of Epidemiology, Non-communicable Diseases Research Center, School of Health, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran

https://doi.org/10.30476/jhsss.2024.100899.1852
Abstract
Background: Coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) became a public health threat to global public health in late 2019. This study aimed to investigate the correlation between lifestyle factors and the COVID-19 epidemiological indicators, including cumulative incidence rate, the cumulative rate of death, recovery rate, and case fatality rate.
Methods: In this ecological study, aggregate data were used. Information about COVID-19 for each country was retrieved from https://www.worldometers.info/ from the date of the first report until November 30th, 2020. The information on the prevalence of smoking, alcohol consumption, and obesity in 2019 was collected from https://www.indexmundi.com/. Moreover, the information on the prevalence of physical inactivity was obtained from the WHO website. We drew scatter plots of lifestyle factors based on COVID-19 indices.
Results: Results showed that the cumulative incidence rate and cumulative rate of death had significant direct correlations with the prevalence of obesity, physical inactivity, smoking, and alcohol consumption (P<0.05). This means that the countries with a high prevalence of obesity, physical inactivity, smoking, and alcohol consumption had increased indicators such as the cumulative incidence rate and cumulative rate of death (P<0.05). There were also significant inverse correlations between the recovery rate and the prevalence of smoking and alcohol consumption (P<0.05).
Conclusion: There are significant correlations between the cumulative incidence rate, the cumulative rate of death, and the recovery rate of COVID-19 with unhealthy lifestyle behaviors. Therefore, it is necessary to develop lifestyle modification strategies that can lead to reduction of the morbidity and mortality of this disease.

Highlights

Fatemeh Rezaei (Google Scholar)

Alireza Mirahmadizadeh (Google Scholar)

Keywords

COVID-19
Lifestyle
Obesity
Physical inactivity
Smoking
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Journal of Health Sciences & Surveillance System
Volume 13, Issue 2
Spring 2025
Pages 182-192

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