Archives of Public Health published results of an individual-level analysis of exhaustive cause of death data in Belgium in 2020, conducted by Cavillot and colleagues. Thanks to the use of multivariable logistic regression models, significant sociodemographic and socioeconomic disparities have been identified in COVID-19 mortality. Additionally, the use of classification trees enables a hierarchical ranking of risk factors for COVID-19 mortality, highlighting that a low level of education was one of the strongest predictors of COVID-19 mortality among adults not living in collective settings. Those results underlines the  importance of implementing preventive measures, particularly within the most vulnerable populations, in infectious disease pandemic preparedness to reduce virus circulation and the resulting lethality.

The full article is available via https://doi.org/10.1186/s13690-024-01437-8.