Korea Journal of Hospital Management (한국병원경영학회지)

Korean Society of Hospital Management (한국병원경영학회)
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Determinants of COVID-19 related infection rates and case mortality rates: 95 country cases

코로나-19 관련 감염률과 치명률의 결정요인: 95개국 사례연구

  • Jin, Ki Nam (Department of Health Administration, Yonsei University Mirae Campus) ;
  • Han, Ji Eun (Department of Health Administration, The Graduate School, Yonsei University) ;
  • Park, Hyunsook (Department of Health Administration, The Graduate School, Yonsei University) ;
  • Han, Chuljoo (Department of Health Administration, The Graduate School, Yonsei University)
  • 진기남 (연세대학교 미래캠퍼스 보건행정학과) ;
  • 한지은 (연세대학교 미래캠퍼스 대학원 보건행정학과) ;
  • 박현숙 (연세대학교 미래캠퍼스 대학원 보건행정학과) ;
  • 한철주 (연세대학교 미래캠퍼스 대학원 보건행정학과)
  • Received : 2020.08.07
  • Accepted : 2020.10.23
  • Published : 2020.12.30
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Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the western countries with advanced medical technology failed to contain coronavirus. This fact triggered our research question of what factors influence the clinical outcomes like infection rates and case mortality rates. This study aims to identify the determinants of COVID-19 related infection rates and case mortality rates. We considered three sets of independent variables: 1) socio-demographic characteristics; 2) cultural characteristics; 3) healthcare system characteristics. For the analysis, we created an international dataset from diverse sources like World Bank, Worldometers, Hofstede Insight, GHS index etc. The COVID-19 related statistics were retrieved from Aug. 1. Total cases are from 95 countries. We used hierarchical regression method to examine the linear relationship among variables. We found that obesity, uncertainty avoidance, hospital beds per 1,000 made a significant influence on the standardized COVID-19 infection rates. The countries with higher BMI score or higher uncertainty avoidance showed higher infection rates. The standardized COVID-19 infection rates were inversely related to hospital beds per 1,000. In the analysis on the standardized COVID-19 case mortality rates, we found that two cultural characteristics(e.g., individualism, uncertainty avoidance) showed statistically significant influence on the case mortality rates. The healthcare system characteristics did not show any statistically significant relationship with the case mortality rates. The cultural characteristics turn out to be significant factors influencing the clinical outcomes during COVID-19 pandemic. The results imply that the persuasive communication is important to trigger the public commitment to follow preventive measures. The strategy to keep the hospital surge capacity needs to be developed.

Keywords

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