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Higher mortality following SARS-CoV-2 infection in rural versus urban dwellers persists for two years post-infection

Anzalone, A Jerrod
Vest, Michael T
Schissel, Makayla E
Price, Bradley
Hillegass, William B
Horswell, Ronald
Chu, San
Rosen, Clifford J
Miele, Lucio
Santangelo, Susan L
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Abstract

Previous studies demonstrated higher short-term mortality among rural compared with urban residents infected with SARS-CoV-2. However, whether this difference persists remains uncertain. This retrospective cohort study analyzed two-year post-COVID-19 mortality by rurality using the National Clinical Cohort Collaborative COVID-19 Enclave, a United States-based longitudinal electronic health record repository. We analyzed mortality among patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 between April 2020 and December 2022, with follow-up until December 2024. Patients were categorized into urban, urban-adjacent rural (UAR), and nonurban-adjacent rural (NAR) groups based on residential ZIP Code. Mortality differences were assessed using Kaplan-Meier analysis and weighted multivariable Cox regression, with weights derived from demographic factors and models adjusted for background clinical risk and social vulnerability. Among 3,082,978 SARS-CoV-2-infected patients, we found a significant association between rurality and increased two-year all-cause mortality post-infection. Adjusted hazards for two-year mortality for UAR and NAR were 1.19 (95% CI 1.18-1.21) and 1.26 (1.22-1.29). A reference cohort of 4,153,216 COVID-19-negative patients showed a modest yet consistent rural mortality penalty, with a similar relative hazard across cohorts, an observed rurality-COVID-19 interaction, and a greater absolute number of deaths following SARS-CoV-2 infection. Our findings emphasize ongoing rural mortality disparities and the importance of public health efforts in rural communities.

Source

Anzalone AJ, Vest MT, Schissel ME, Price B, Hillegass WB, Horswell R, Chu S, Rosen CJ, Miele L, Santangelo SL, Smith GS, Hodder SL; National Clinical Cohort Collaborative (N3C) Consortium. Higher mortality following SARS-CoV-2 infection in rural versus urban dwellers persists for two years post-infection. Nat Commun. 2025 Oct 8;16(1):8933. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-63944-8. PMID: 41062502; PMCID: PMC12508022.

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DOI
10.1038/s41467-025-63944-8
PubMed ID
41062502
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Funding and Acknowledgements
The UMass Center for Clinical and Translational Science (UMCCTS), UL1TR001453, helped fund this study.
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Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. © The Author(s) 2025