Poor, unmarried men are more likely to die from COVID-19

Being a man, having a lower income, a lower level of education, not being married, and being born in low-or middle-income countries increases risk of dying from COVID-19.

Covid-19 leaves behind long detectable changes in the blood of patients, very similar to a fingerprint.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a huge toll in the last 10 months since it began. Since the beginning, experts have said that the elderly and people with underlying health conditions like diabetes and heart disease are at risk of severe complications and even death. This disease is unpredictable and, as time went by, it revealed new symptoms and complications. Other than shortness of breath and a dry cough and fever, it also affected different organs in the body and affected the nervous system. Many experts also said that men are at greater risk of catching the disease and attributed this to lower levels of the hormone oestrogen in their bodies. Many studies also pointed to the fact that men are more susceptible to COVID-19 infection and are also more likely to have more severe complications than women. Now new facts have come to light.

Being a man, having a lower income, a lower level of education, not being married, and being born in low-or middle-income countries -- these are factors that relate to an elevated risk of dying from COVID-19, warn researchers from Stockholm University in Sweden. According to them, they can how that there are independent effects of various separate risk factors that have been brought up in debates and news about COVID-19. All of these factors are accordingly individually associated with a strongly elevated risk of dying from COVID-19. The study is based on data from the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare on all registered deaths from Covid-19 in Sweden for adults aged 20 and older.

Income, education level has an impact on mortality

In a study, published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers explained that those born abroad generally have lower mortality than people born in Sweden. This also applies when the research took income and level of education into account. The elevated risk of dying from COVID-19 for this group remains after the researchers controlled for circumstances, such as income and level of education. The study shows that being a man, having a lower income and lower level of education also result in a strongly elevated risk of dying from COVID-19. As to these aspects, this also agrees with the patterns for mortality from other diseases.

Men are more susceptible

The findings showed that men had more than twice as high a risk of dying from COVID-19 than women. Unmarried men and women (including those never married, widows/widowers and the divorced) had a 1.5-2 times as high risk of dying from COVID-19 as those who were married. According to the researchers, men generally have higher mortality at comparable ages, which is considered to be due to a combination of biology and lifestyle. The fact that people with little education or a low income have higher mortality may largely be due to lifestyle factors, including finances -- how much one can afford to prioritise one's health. A number of earlier studies have also shown that single and unmarried people have higher mortality from various diseases, the research team noted.

(With inputs from IANS)