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Coresidence increases the risk of testing positive for COVID-19 among older Brazilians

BACKGROUND: Brazil is among the countries hit hardest by COVID-19, and older adults are among the vulnerable groups. Intergenerational coresidence and interdependence among family members, both prevalent in Brazil, likely increase social and physical contact and thus potential infection. METHODS: Us...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Andrade, Flavia Cristina Drumond, Quashie, Nekehia T., Schwartzman, Luisa Farah
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8817777/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35123395
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-022-02800-6
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author Andrade, Flavia Cristina Drumond
Quashie, Nekehia T.
Schwartzman, Luisa Farah
author_facet Andrade, Flavia Cristina Drumond
Quashie, Nekehia T.
Schwartzman, Luisa Farah
author_sort Andrade, Flavia Cristina Drumond
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Brazil is among the countries hit hardest by COVID-19, and older adults are among the vulnerable groups. Intergenerational coresidence and interdependence among family members, both prevalent in Brazil, likely increase social and physical contact and thus potential infection. METHODS: Using nationally representative data from the COVID-19 module of the Brazilian National Household Sample Survey (Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios), collected between July and November of 2020, we examined the association between living arrangements and exposure to and testing for COVID-19 among 63,816 Brazilians aged 60 years and older. We examine whether living arrangements influence self-reported COVID-19 symptoms as an indicator of subjective health assessment, testing as an indicator of health care service use, and a positive COVID-19 test result as an objective indicator of exposure to the disease. RESULTS: Living arrangements shape older adults’ vulnerabilities to COVID-19 exposure and testing. Specifically, those living alone were more likely to report having symptoms and having had a test for COVID-19. However, older adults in multigenerational and skipped generation households were more likely than solo-dwellers to test positive for COVID-19. Those with symptoms were more likely to test, regardless of their living arrangement. Among older adults without symptoms, those living alone had a higher probability of testing than those living in multigenerational or skipped-generation households. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, our findings suggest that coresidence with younger family members puts older adults’ health at risk in the context of COVID-19. As younger Brazilians are increasingly vulnerable to COVID-19 and experiencing severe outcomes, policy makers need to be more attentive to the health needs of households that comprise older and younger cohorts, which are also more prevalent in poor and marginalized segments of the population.
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spelling pubmed-88177772022-02-07 Coresidence increases the risk of testing positive for COVID-19 among older Brazilians Andrade, Flavia Cristina Drumond Quashie, Nekehia T. Schwartzman, Luisa Farah BMC Geriatr Research BACKGROUND: Brazil is among the countries hit hardest by COVID-19, and older adults are among the vulnerable groups. Intergenerational coresidence and interdependence among family members, both prevalent in Brazil, likely increase social and physical contact and thus potential infection. METHODS: Using nationally representative data from the COVID-19 module of the Brazilian National Household Sample Survey (Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios), collected between July and November of 2020, we examined the association between living arrangements and exposure to and testing for COVID-19 among 63,816 Brazilians aged 60 years and older. We examine whether living arrangements influence self-reported COVID-19 symptoms as an indicator of subjective health assessment, testing as an indicator of health care service use, and a positive COVID-19 test result as an objective indicator of exposure to the disease. RESULTS: Living arrangements shape older adults’ vulnerabilities to COVID-19 exposure and testing. Specifically, those living alone were more likely to report having symptoms and having had a test for COVID-19. However, older adults in multigenerational and skipped generation households were more likely than solo-dwellers to test positive for COVID-19. Those with symptoms were more likely to test, regardless of their living arrangement. Among older adults without symptoms, those living alone had a higher probability of testing than those living in multigenerational or skipped-generation households. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, our findings suggest that coresidence with younger family members puts older adults’ health at risk in the context of COVID-19. As younger Brazilians are increasingly vulnerable to COVID-19 and experiencing severe outcomes, policy makers need to be more attentive to the health needs of households that comprise older and younger cohorts, which are also more prevalent in poor and marginalized segments of the population. BioMed Central 2022-02-05 /pmc/articles/PMC8817777/ /pubmed/35123395 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-022-02800-6 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, 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 changes were made. 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/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Andrade, Flavia Cristina Drumond
Quashie, Nekehia T.
Schwartzman, Luisa Farah
Coresidence increases the risk of testing positive for COVID-19 among older Brazilians
title Coresidence increases the risk of testing positive for COVID-19 among older Brazilians
title_full Coresidence increases the risk of testing positive for COVID-19 among older Brazilians
title_fullStr Coresidence increases the risk of testing positive for COVID-19 among older Brazilians
title_full_unstemmed Coresidence increases the risk of testing positive for COVID-19 among older Brazilians
title_short Coresidence increases the risk of testing positive for COVID-19 among older Brazilians
title_sort coresidence increases the risk of testing positive for covid-19 among older brazilians
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8817777/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35123395
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-022-02800-6
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