Household factors and the risk of severe COVID-like illness early in the US pandemic

D. Nash, S. Qasmieh, M. Robertson, M. Rane, R. Zimba, S. Kulkarni, A. Berry, W. You, C. Mirzayi, D. Westmoreland, A. Parcesepe, L. Waldron, S. Kochhar, A. Maroko, C. Grov

medRxiv, 2020

Objective: To investigate the role of children in the home and household crowding as risk factors for severe COVID-19 disease. Methods: We used interview data from 6,831 U.S. adults screened for the Communities, Households and SARS/CoV-2 Epidemiology (CHASING) COVID Cohort Study in April 2020. Results: In logistic regression models, the adjusted odds ratio [aOR] of hospitalization due to COVID-19 for having (versus not having) children in the home was 10.5 (95% CI:5.7-19.1) among study participants living in multi-unit dwellings and 2.2 (95% CI:1.2-6.5) among those living in single unit dwellings. Among participants living in multi-unit dwellings, the aOR for COVID-19 hospitalization among participants with more than 4 persons in their household (versus 1 person) was 2.5 (95% CI:1.0- 6.1), and 0.8 (95% CI:0.15-4.1) among those living in single unit dwellings. Conclusion: Early in the US SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, certain household exposures likely increased the risk of both SARS-CoV-2 acquisition and the risk of severe COVID-19 disease.

Cited by 4 publications.

Field of study: Medicine

10.1101/2020.12.03.20243683