Does BMI predict the early spatial variation and intensity of Covid-19 in developing countries? Evidence from India.

ABSTRACT: This paper studies BMI as a correlate of the early spatial distribution and intensity of Covid-19 across the districts of India and finds that conditional on a range of individual, household and regional characteristics, adult BMI significantly predicts the likelihood that the district is a hotspot, the natural log of the confirmed number of cases, the case fatality rate, and the propensity that the district is a red zone. Controlling for air-pollution, rainfall, temperature, demographic factors that measure population density, the proportion of the elderly, and health infrastructure including per capita health spending and the proportion of respiratory cases, does not diminish the predictive power of BMI in influencing the spatial incidence and spread of the virus. The association between

SUBMITTER: Menon N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7886627 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature