Developmental disorders top the medical conditions that heighten the risk of dying from Covid-19

Developmental disorders heighten the risk of dying from Covid-19 - STAT Among 15 conditions that increase the odds of dying from Covid-19, developmental disorders are at the top of the list. Patrick Skerrett STAT

Some underlying medical conditions put Covid-19 patients at higher risk of severe outcomes, including death. But much remains unknown about exactly which conditions are involved and how much they increase risk.

To explore the connections between underlying conditions and Covid-19, my organization, FAIR Health, collaborated with the West Health Institute and surgeon Marty Makary of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Our study, published on Wednesday, sheds some light on the subject.

Using FAIR Health’s vast database of private health care claims, we studied 467,773 patients diagnosed with Covid-19 from April 1 through Aug. 31, looking for the risk factors that increased their odds of dying from Covid-19. Our goal was to inform public health policy, particularly protocols for distributing first-line vaccines or therapeutics.

We did the analyses for people of all ages, and again for those under age 70.

Across all age groups, Covid-19 patients had greater odds of dying if they had any of the 15 underlying health conditions, also known as comorbidities, shown in the chart  attached. ...

There are several possible reasons why individuals with developmental disorders and intellectual disabilities might be more likely to die from Covid-19. They often have multiple chronic conditions, and another of our findings was that the odds of dying from Covid-19 rise as the number of comorbidities increase. Individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities are also at greater risk of becoming infected with the virus that causes Covid-19, both because they are disproportionately represented as workers in essential service, and because many live in group residential settings....