Hispanic Women More Vulnerable to COVID-19 During Pregnancy, Study Finds

A new study finds that Hispanic pregnant women in the Southern United States are twice likely to have coronavirus than non-Hispanic women.

Besides, researchers found those with government health insurance are more likely to test positive for COVID-19 than women who have private insurance.

According to Web MD, pregnant women were routinely tested for the coronavirus as for the study to determine if they are more susceptible to this disease. They went to Houston hospital for the delivery, Dr.Beth Pineles said, one of the researchers.

Pineles, a maternal-fetal medicine fellow with McGovern Medical School at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UT Health), explained that it is essential to test everyone to avoid getting many individuals to test positive if they will only test symptomatic people.

In a UT Health news release, Pineles said, "Universal testing allows you to get an unbiased estimate of who is being infected, and our study found that Hispanic women were much more likely to have the virus."

Researchers gathered data of more than 900 Black, Asian, White, and Hispanic patients. Nearly 11% tested positive for COVID-19 among Hispanic women, compared with the 5.5% non-Hispanic patients, the findings revealed.

The study didn't show the reason behind Hispanic women patients being more likely to contract the coronavirus. However, research seems to point to more cultural and social reasons among any genetic disposition, added Pineles.

It's too soon in the pandemic to fully know. Still, some studies have looked at the doctor, such as the number of people living in the household, neighborhood crowding, and having essential jobs instead of staying at home and social distance, she said.

The 9.5 percent of patients with public insurance had coronavirus, while only 2.5 percent of patients have private insurance, researchers discovered.

Dr. Jacqueline Parchem said that one strength of their study is that Houston's obstetric population is incredibly diverse and can examine outcomes for groups that are often underrepresented.

Parchem is an assistant professor in the obstetrics, reproductive sciences, and gynecology department at the medical school.

Aside from race or ethnicity, the finding that public insurance was associated with higher infection rates is already predicted; they know that systemic barriers to health care are significant problems. "But having the data matters because evidence calls attention to the issue and ideally motivates policy change," Parchem said.

Medical Express reported there is still good news emerging in the findings. 86% of the patients were asymptomatic and that there were no mothers who died, and the baby never showed any COVID-19 symptoms.

Pineles said that, in a sense, the study is reassuring that only one infant tested positive, and they were asymptomatic.

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