BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Life-Course Epidemiology and Social Inequalities in Health
This article is part of the Research TopicHealth Services and Economic Inequalities through the Lens of Sustainable DevelopmentView all 3 articles
Socioeconomic status and risk of COVID-19 hospitalization in the All of Us Research Program
Provisionally accepted
- 1Northwestern University, Evanston, Il, United States
- 2The University of Chicago Institute for Population and Precision Health, Chicago, IL, United States
- 3The University of Chicago Department of Surgery, Chicago, United States
- 4The University of Chicago Department of Family Medicine, Chicago, United States
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Introduction: The relationship between socioeconomic status and COVID-19 related hospitalization has been widely examined, although findings differ across study settings and populations. This study used data from the NIH All of Us Research Program to explore the association between age, race, income, education, neighborhood deprivation, and risk of COVID-19 hospitalization. Methods: This cross-sectional analysis included 25,650 adults with confirmed COVID-19 between 2021 and 2023, including 662 hospitalized for COVID-19. Covariates were age, sex at birth, race/ethnicity, annual household income, education, and deprivation index score. Our analysis controlled for the following risk factors: BMI, smoking status at enrollment, COVID-19 vaccination status, and history of cancer, chronic kidney disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, and hypertension. Logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratios. Results: Increased hospitalization risk was observed among participants aged 66-95 (OR: 1.81, 95% CI: 1.27, 2.58) and aged 51-65 (OR: 1.73, 95% CI: 1.24, 2.43), as well as Non-Hispanic Black/African American participants (OR: 2.48, 95% CI: 1.99, 3.10), and Hispanic participants (OR: 1.47, 95% CI: 1.15, 1.88). Increased risk was also observed among participants living in the highest deprivation areas (OR: 2.60, 95% CI: 2.04, 3.31), those with an annual income less than $25,000 (OR: 1.67, 95% CI: 1.15, 2.44), and those with an annual income of $25,000 to $50,000 (OR: 1.45, 95% CI: 1.06, 1.99). Conclusions: Our findings indicate meaningful associations between the risk of COVID-19-associated hospitalization and socioeconomic factors including age, racial/ethnic minority status, lower income, and higher area deprivation.
Keywords: COVID-19, Socioeconomic status, Deprivation index, All of Us Research Program, socioeconomic disparities
Received: 21 Aug 2025; Accepted: 07 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Choi, Craver, Yang, Luo and Aschebrook-Kilfoy. 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: Andrew Craver, cravera@bsd.uchicago.edu
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