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Research Paper|Volume 13, Issue 3|pp 3190—3201

The age pattern of the male-to-female ratio in mortality from COVID-19 mirrors that of cardiovascular disease in the general population

Ila Nimgaonkar1, Linda Valeri2, Ezra Susser3,4, Sabiha Hussain5, Jag Sunderram5, Abraham Aviv6
  • 1Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Rutgers State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA
  • 2Department of Biostatistics, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA
  • 3Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA
  • 4New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY 10032, USA
  • 5Department of Medicine, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Rutgers State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA
  • 6Center of Human Development and Aging, New Jersey Medical School, Rutgers State University of New Jersey, Newark, NJ 07103, USA
Received: November 16, 2020Accepted: January 22, 2021Published: February 7, 2021
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.202639

Copyright: © 2021 Nimgaonkar et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Males are at a higher risk of dying from COVID-19 than females. Older age and cardiovascular disease are also associated with COVID-19 mortality. To better understand how age and sex interact in contributing to COVID-19 mortality, we stratified the male-to-female (sex) ratios in mortality by age group. We then compared the age-stratified sex ratios with those of cardiovascular mortality and cancer mortality in the general population. Data were obtained from official government sources in the US and five European countries: Italy, Spain, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. The sex ratio of deaths from COVID-19 exceeded one throughout adult life, increasing up to a peak in midlife, and declining markedly in later life. This pattern was also observed for the sex ratio of deaths from cardiovascular disease, but not cancer, in the general populations of the US and European countries. Therefore, the sex ratios of deaths from COVID-19 and from cardiovascular disease share similar patterns across the adult life course. The underlying mechanisms are poorly understood and warrant further investigation.