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Modelling the spatial varying relationships between socioeconomic inequalities and COVID-19 mortality in the African subregion

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Abstract

Infectious diseases continue to be a global health menace to society. Admittedly, there have been improvements in public health infrastructure and structural response to these diseases, however, a lot more needs to be done to have a firm grip. This study applied the geographically weighted poisson regression (GWPR) model to study the spatial variations in the effects of socioeconomic factors on COVID-19 Mortality in the African subregion. The performance of the GWPR model was compared to the conventional Poisson regression model. The results suggest that accounting for the spatial heterogeneity through the GWPR model (RMSE = 100.604, MAE = 70.582, Pseudo R2 = 0.773) improves the modelling performance compared to the conventional Poisson regression model (RMSE = 118.574, MAE = 83.054, Pseudo R2 = 0.530). In addition, the effects of all the socioeconomic variables considered (i.e., educational index, unemployment rates, income index, gross domestic product, and forest area) on COVID-19 mortality were found to be spatial non-stational across the subregion. These results highlight the need to draw preventive and response policies applicable to infectious diseases with greater consideration of the different geographical points on the continent.

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Data availability

The dataset used and/or analysed during the current study is available in the public domain.

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Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, College of Science, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana

    Yaw K. Awuah-Mensah

  2. School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Dubai Campus, Dubai, UAE

    Eric N. Aidoo

Authors
  1. Yaw K. Awuah-Mensah
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  2. Eric N. Aidoo
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Contributions

Yaw Kwaafo Awuah-Mensah prepared and wrote the main manuscript text. All authors collected, cleaned and analysed the data used for the manuscript. Eric Nimako Aidoo read and approved the final manuscript. All authors saw to the preparation of a revised version as commented by the reviewers.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yaw K. Awuah-Mensah.

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Communicated by Hassan Babaie.

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Awuah-Mensah, Y.K., Aidoo, E.N. Modelling the spatial varying relationships between socioeconomic inequalities and COVID-19 mortality in the African subregion. Earth Sci Inform (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12145-024-01321-7

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