A basic epidemiological study on the association between air quality and COVID-19 lethality in India and United States

Abstract

Introduction: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a global pandemic level, respiratory system targeted virus infection. The impacts of smoking habits, genetics, and chronic medical conditions such as lung cancers on COVID patients has been assessed extensively so far. However the role of the ambient air quality as a vital factor of life, in COVID 19 mortality risk is not yet properly studies. The association and correlations between ambient air quality and mortality risk has been assessed in this study at a preliminary scale using basic statistical analysis in India and United States of America (USA); two countries with highest COVID prevalence in the world.

Materials and methods: Pearson's Chi-squared test for independence was employed to assess the associations and CramerV statistics was used to evaluate the strength of associations between mortality and air quality. Pearson's product-moment correlation and Spearman's rank correlation were employed to assess the correlation between ambient air quality and deaths.

Results: In the study, the risk of mortality appeared to be significantly dependent on the level of ambient air quality in both countries. However the strength of association was significantly low in both cases. The correlation between ambient air quality and mortalities in both countries also appeared to be significantly low. However the correlation in USA appeared to be higher than in India.

Conclusion: Based on above results it can be concluded that the risk of mortality is dependent on ambient air quality, but air quality might not be the only dominant definitive factor for mortality. However further research might be required at pathological level to theorize the above relationship.