Political Economy of the COVID-19 Pandemic: How State Policies Shape County-Level Disparities in COVID-19 Deaths.

The authors examine how two state-level coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) policy indices (one capturing economic support and one capturing stringency measures such as stay-at-home orders) were associated with county-level COVID-19 mortality from April through December 2020 and whether the policies were more beneficial for certain counties. Using multilevel negative binominal regression models, the authors found that high scores on both policy indices were associated with lower county-level COVID-19 mortality. However, the policies appeared to be most beneficial for counties with fewer physicians and larger shares of older adults, low-educated residents, and Trump voters.

Uncertainty and the reporting of intellectual disability on death certificates: a cross-sectional study of US mortality data from 2005 to 2017.

Objective: To investigate whether uncertainty surrounding the death is associated with the inaccurate reporting of intellectual disability as the underlying cause of death.

Design: National Vital Statistics System 2005-2017 US Multiple Cause-of-Death Mortality files.

Setting: USA.