A Study of Cumulative COVID-19 Mortality Trends Associated with Ethnic-Racial Composition, Income Inequality, and Party Inclination among US Counties

This research analyzes the association between cumulative COVID-19 mortality and ethnic-racial composition, income inequality, and political party inclination across counties in the United States. The study extends prior research by taking a long view-examining cumulative mortality burdens over the first 900 days of the COVID-19 pandemic at five time points (via negative binomial models) and as trajectories of cumulative mortality trends (via growth curve models). The analysis shows that counties with a higher Republican vote share display a higher cumulative mortality, especially over longer periods of the pandemic. It also demonstrates that counties with a higher composition of ethnic-racial minorities, especially Blacks, bear a much higher cumulative mortality burden, and such an elevated burden would be even higher when a county has a higher level of income inequality. For counties with a higher proportion of Hispanic population, while the burden is lower than that for counties with a higher proportion of Blacks, the cumulative COVID-19 mortality burden still is elevated and compounded by income inequality, at any given time point during the pandemic.

Fertility of Female Filipino and Indonesian Migrant Domestic Workers in Hong Kong

The relationship between migrant workers’ migratory moves and their fertility is complex. The literature on international migration contains three main explanations of the relationship—the disruption hypothesis, the adaptation hypothesis, and the selectivity hypothesis. The research reported in the literature has so far focused on international migrants, many of whom have the prospect of becoming legal immigrants, while there is little research on the relation between migration and fertility for Southeast Asian labor migrants who are on employment contracts and cannot gain permanent residency. Of the three hypotheses, only the disruption hypothesis is relevant for temporary migrant workers, yet its findings have been mixed. This research note aims to fill in the gap by focusing on the disruption hypothesis in an examination of Filipina and Indonesian migrant domestic workers’ migration and fertility trajectories, using the 2017 survey of Filipina and Indonesian migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong. The findings from the analysis suggest a disruptive effect of migration on fertility for the women in their earlier reproductive years from both Indonesia and the Philippines but not for the women in their later childbearing ages, thus shedding light on the divergent disruptive mechanism of migration on fertility.

Sequence analysis: Its past, present, and future

This article marks the occasion of Social Science Research's 50th anniversary by reflecting on the progress of sequence analysis (SA) since its introduction into the social sciences four decades ago, with focuses on the developments of SA thus far in the social sciences and on its potential future directions. The application of SA in the social sciences, especially in life course research, has mushroomed in the last decade and a half. Using a life course analogy, we examined the birth of SA in the social sciences and its childhood (the first wave), its adolescence and young adulthood (the second wave), and its future mature adulthood in the paper. The paper provides a summary of (1) the important SA research and the historical contexts in which SA was developed by Andrew Abbott, (2) a thorough review of the many methodological developments in visualization, complexity measures, dissimilarity measures, group analysis of dissimilarities, cluster analysis of dissimilarities, multidomain/multichannel SA, dyadic/polyadic SA, Markov chain SA, sequence life course analysis, sequence network analysis, SA in other social science research, and software for SA, and (3) reflections on some future directions of SA including how SA can benefit and inform theory-making in the social sciences, the methods currently being developed, and some remaining challenges facing SA for which we do not yet have any solutions. It is our hope that the reader will take up the challenges and help us improve and grow SA into maturity.

Social and economic inequality in coronavirus disease 2019 vaccination coverage across Illinois counties

Prior research has well established the association of ethno-racial and economic inequality with COVID-19 incidence and mortality rates across counties in the US. In this ecological study, a similar association was found between ethno-racial and economic inequality and COVID-19 full vaccination rates across the 102 counties in the American state of Illinois in the early months of vaccination. Among the counties with income inequality below the median, a county’s poverty rate had a negative association with the proportion of population fully vaccinated. However, among the counties with income inequality above the median, a higher percentage of Black or Hispanic population was persistently associated with a lower proportion of fully vaccinated population over the two-month period from early February to early April of 2021.

Association of Social and Economic Inequality With Coronavirus Disease 2019 Incidence and Mortality Across US Counties

IMPORTANCE

It is now established that across the United States, minoritized populations have borne a disproportionate burden from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, little is known about the interaction among a county's racial/ethnic composition, its level of income inequality, political factors, and COVID-19 outcomes in the population.

OBJECTIVE

To quantify the association of economic inequality, racial/ethnic composition, political factors, and state health care policy with the incidence and mortality burden associated with COVID-19.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS

This cross-sectional study used data from the 3142 counties in the 50 US states and for Washington, DC. Data on the first 200 days of the COVID-19 pandemic, from the first confirmed US case on January 22 to August 8, 2020, were gathered from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and USAFacts.org, the US Census Bureau, the American Community Survey, GitHub, the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Council of State Governments, and the National Governors Association.

EXPOSURES

Racial/ethnic composition was determined as percentage of the population that is Black or Hispanic; income inequality, using the Gini index; politics, political affiliation and sex of the state governor, gubernatorial term limits, and percentage of the county's population that voted Republican in 2016; and state health care policy, participation in the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Six additional covariates were assessed.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES

Cumulative COVID-19 incidence and mortality rates for US counties during the first 200 days of the pandemic. Main measures include percentage Black and Hispanic population composition, income inequality, and a set of additional covariates.

RESULTS

This study included 3141 of 3142 US counties. The mean Black population was 9.365% (range, 0-86.593%); the mean Hispanic population was 9.754% (range, 0.648%-96.353%); the mean Gini ratio was 44.538 (range, 25.670-66.470); the proportion of counties within states that implemented Medicaid expansion was 0.577 (range, 0-1); the mean number of confirmed COVID-19 cases per 100 000 population was 1093.882 (range, 0-14 019.852); and the mean number of COVID-19-related deaths per 100 000 population was 26.173 (range, 0-413.858). A 1.0% increase in a county's income inequality corresponded to an adjusted risk ratio (RR) of 1.020 (95% CI, 1.012-1.027) for COVID-19 incidence and adjusted RR of 1.030 (95% CI, 1.012-1.047) for COVID-19 mortality. Inequality compounded the association of racial/ethnic composition through interaction, with higher income inequality raising the intercepts of the incidence curve RR by a factor of 1.041 (95% CI, 1.031-1.051) and that of the mortality curve RR by a factor of 1.068 (95% CI, 1.042-1.094) but slightly lowering their curvatures, especially for Hispanic composition. When state-level specificities were controlled, none of the state political factors were associated with COVID-19 incidence or mortality. However, a county in a state with Medicaid expansion implemented would see the incidence rate RR decreased by a multiplicative factor of 0.678 (95% CI, 0.501-0.918).

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE

This county-level ecological analysis suggests that COVID-19 surveillance systems should account for county-level income inequality to better understand the social patterning of COVID-19 incidence and mortality. High levels of income inequality may harm population health irrespective of racial/ethnic composition.

Population Changes in Heterodera glycines and Its Bacterial Parasite Pasteuria sp. in Naturally Infested Soil

A two-year soil sampling study was conducted on four microplots naturally infested with Heterodera glycines and an undescfibed species of Pasteuria. The objectives of the study were to investigate the population dynamics of both organisms and to assess the potential of Pasteuria sp. as a biological control agent of H. glycines. Seasonal fluctuations were observed in numbers of cysts, eggs per cyst, second-stage juveniles (J2) of H. glycines, number of Pasteuria endospores attached per J2, and percentages of endospore-encumbered J2. Percentages of endospore-encumbered J2, Y, increased with the mean numbers of endospores per J2, X, according to the equation Y = 87.0(1 - e(-0.53X)). In contrast, numbers of J2 per 250 cm(3) soil, Y, decreased with the numbers of endospores per J2, X, according to the exponential decay model Y= 67.4 + 220.1e(-1.2X). The equilibrium J2 density (67.4 +/- 3.3) derived from this function was consistent with the predictions of the Lotka-Volterra model of population dynamics based on the equation 0.0195ln(y) - 0.000336y = 0.000049x - 0.00285ln(x) + 0.06589, where x and y represent the biweekly means of J2 densities and the percentages of endospore-encumbered J2, respectively. In all cases, predicted equilibrium densities of J2 were below the damage threshold reported from field studies. These results indicate that, given sufficient time following introduction into a field, Pasteuria may increase to levels that would be effective as one component in an integrated pest management proglmn to control H. glycines.

Measuring population aging as a function of fertility, mortality, and migration

Researchers often describe population aging with measures such as proportion of population under 15 years of age, proportion of population 65 years and over, the aged/child ratio (a ratio of the first two measures), median age, and mean age. Investigators of cross-cultural gerontology, too, use such measures to compare population aging between populations. While insights from comparing only the values of an aging measure between two populations may be helpful, results from such comparison can be misleading due to the influences of fertility, mortality, and migration. To show the effects of these demographic processes on measures of population aging, rates of change in five measures of population aging as a function of fertility, mortality, and migration are developed. These rates of change are estimated for various stable populations, for stable populations disequilibrated by fertility and mortality declines and by net migration, and for the population in Japan, 1988-1989. The findings demonstrate that the five aging measures, in general, do not give consistent rate-of-change estimates; they also suggest that directly comparing values of aging measures without considering the levels and patterns of fertility, mortality, and migration will lead to misleading conclusions.

A flexible approach for the decomposition of rate differences

Conventional methods of decomposing the difference between two rates, such as Kitagawa's classic component analysis, are confined to taking the average of compositional differences. I propose a more general modeling approach involving three steps: (1) A system of equations with the various additive components of the rate difference is set up; (2) unknowns (refined rate differences) are estimated with Clogg's purging method; (3) the components are calculated. I use an example of U.S. mortality data to compare the proposed method with the conventional ones. The method can be generalized to decompositions for multiple groups and for multiple confounding factors. Kitagawa's method is a special case of this general approach.

Effects of intratesticular aflatoxin B1 on rat testes and blood estrogens

An investigation of the effects of aflatoxin B1 on rat testes and plasma estrogens is reported. A normal saline-suspended aflatoxin B1 was injected into right testes of mature Sprague-Dawley rats at doses of 0, 5, 10, 25 or 50 micrograms. Effects were evaluated by histopathological alterations of the testes and by levels of plasma estrogens estimated by a modified Dextron-Charcoal radioimmune assay. Significant gross lesions were present in testes injected with the 50 microgram dose. There was a 50% reduction in size and weight as compared to the left testis. Histological changes were dose-dependent, with minimal or no changes at 5 micrograms and maximal effects at 50 micrograms. The lesions varied from mild testicular degeneration to complete disappearance of cellular components. Interstitial cell proliferation, occasional calcification of seminiferous tubules, and absence of spermatogenesis and spermatozoa were extreme toxic effects. Estrogen concentrations in injected rats were reduced compared to those of control and normal rats. This study suggested that following intratesticular aflatoxin B1 exerts a direct toxic effect on testes with a reduction in plasma estrogen levels.

Serum hydrocortisone (cortisol) values in normal and adrenopathic dogs as determined by radioimmunoassay

Using a specific radioimmunoassay, serum hydrocortisone values were measured in dogs. Between 9:00 AM and 10:00 AM, the base-line hydrocortisone value for 56 clinically normal dogs ranged from 6.0 to 28.5 ng/ml, with a mean value of 17.8 +/- 1.32 ng/ml (mean +/- SEM). Marked differences due to age, sex, body weight, or breed were not observed in the hydrocortisone values. In 11 dogs with definitive hyperadrenocorticism, serum hydrocortisone values were from 32 to 148 ng/ml. In 2 dogs with hyperadrenocorticism, the values were 4.5 and 3.1 ng/ml. The estimation of serum hydrocortisone values by radioimmunoassay is simple and precise, and can be utilized to aid in the diagnosis of adrenopathy in dogs.