Study on Houston patients shows men are more likely to contract, die from COVID-19
Men are more likely to contract and die from COVID-19, according to a new analysis of roughly 100,000 cases handled by Houston Methodist Hospital last year.
The peer-reviewed study, published last week, also found that men were more likely to experience complications from the virus, which has killed more than 400,000 Americans.
Researchers analyzed 96,000 patients tested at Houston Methodist between March and August of last year, of which about 15 percent ultimately tested positive for the virus. While similar research has been published in China and Europe, the report’s authors said theirs is the first to examine a major metropolitan area in the U.S.
“It has kind of confirmed the preliminary or non-U.S. reports that have been out there: that males are affected more and males tend to have poorer outcomes,” said Farhaan Vahidy, a Houston Methodist researcher who led the study.
After adjusting for demographic factors and comorbidities, researchers found that 11.6
percent of men died in hospitals because of the virus, compared with 8.3 percent of females. Men also required stays in the intensive care unit or mechanical ventilation at higher rates than women — 34.1 percent, compared with 27.6 percent.
The findings come as hospitals across the nation fill with a new wave of COVID-19 patients and amid a vaccine rollout that has been lackluster in many parts of the country. Public health experts worry that the gender disparities could have long-term consequences as well for men, particularly those who lack access to proper health care.
Those numbers are reflected in statewide data as well: As of last week, about two-thirds of Texas’ confirmed cases have been males, as have about 57 percent of the roughly 68,000 people who have died of the virus, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.
Research on other infectious diseases has shown that men are more susceptible, which Vahidy and others say could be because of men having one fewer X-chromosome than women have.
“The biggest implication is that we still don’t know the long-term consequences of this pandemic,” he said. “That is definitely something to look out for and be sensitive of when we deal with patients.”
Men’s health experts have echoed those concerns. Dr. Sal Giorgianni, a science adviser for the Men’s Health Network, noted that men are also disproportionately affected by other fatal diseases, a disparity that has been evident since the influenza pandemic of 1918.
“You have the direct effects of the virus and the indirect effects of economic downturn, stress and anxiety,” he said. “The underlying conditions that make one susceptible (to COVID-19 and other diseases) dominate in men.”