ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Life-Course Epidemiology and Social Inequalities in Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1514076
COVID-19 MORTALITY ASSOCIATED WITH MULTIDIMENSIONAL POVERTY, ETHNICITIES, AND ARMED CONFLICT IN COLOMBIA: RETROSPECTIVE OBSERVATIONAL STUDY BASED ON NATIONAL RECORDS
Provisionally accepted
Claudia Ines Birchenall Jimenez1,2*
Wilson Giovanni Jiménez-Barbosa3
Javier Riascos-Ochoa3
Federico Cosenz4- 1Hospital Universitario Mayor Mederi, Bogota, Colombia
- 2Rosario University, Bogotá, Bogota, Colombia
- 3Universidad de Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano, Bogotá, Cundinamarca, Colombia
- 4University of Palermo, Palermo, Sicily, Italy
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The COVID-19 pandemic in Colombia exposed the interplay between multidimensional poverty, ethnic diversity, and armed conflict. This crisis worsened inequalities, disproportionately affecting Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities already living in adverse conditions. Armed conflict further weakened social capital, limiting well-being in impoverished and violent regions. This study aimed to investigate the associations of poverty, ethnicity, and conflict zones with COVID-19 mortality.A retrospective observational study based on national records was conducted in Colombia from March 2020 to December 2022, in which COVID-19 cases confirmed by PCR or antigen tests were analysed. Demographic, ethnic, and mortality data were obtained from the National Institute of Health, while poverty data were obtained from the DANE's 2018 census. Descriptive analyses, chisquare tests, and bivariate analyses were performed. A multilevel logistic regression model identified risk factors, reporting odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs).Results: Between March 2020 and December 2022, 6,313,872 COVID-19 cases were recorded in Colombia. Afro-Colombians 2.58% and Indigenous peoples (2.75%) had higher mortality than White/Mestizo individuals did (2.24%). ZOMAC municipalities reported a mortality rate of 3.61%, and PDET municipalities reported a mortality rate of 3.20%. Multilevel analysis revealed increased mortality risks for Afro-Colombians (OR 1.14, 95% CI 1.11--1.18), Indigenous peoples (OR 1.22, 95% CI 1.17--1.28), and residents of ZOMAC (OR 1.69, 95% CI 1.66--1.72) and PDET municipalities (OR 1.34,.This study highlights disparities in COVID-19 mortality influenced by ethnic, socioeconomic, and territorial factors, with a greater burden on Afro-Colombians, Indigenous peoples, and conflict zones. Public health policies must address these structural inequalities.
Keywords: Ethnic, Armed conflicts, Colombia, Mortality, Multidimensional poverty
Received: 19 Oct 2024; Accepted: 30 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Birchenall Jimenez, Jiménez-Barbosa, Riascos-Ochoa and Cosenz. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Claudia Ines Birchenall Jimenez, Hospital Universitario Mayor Mederi, Bogota, Colombia
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