A Vulnerability Analysis for the Management of and Response to the COVID-19 Epidemic in the Second Most Populous State in Brazil

  1. Igor Silva Campos
  2. Vinícius Ferreira Aratani
  3. Karina Baltor Cabral
  4. Jean Ezequiel Limongi
  5. Stefan Vilges de Oliveira

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Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to affect all individuals, however in a heterogeneous way. In this sense, identifying specificities of each location is essential to minimize the damage caused by the disease. Therefore, the aim of this research was to assess the vulnerability of 853 municipalities in the second most populous state in Brazil, Minas Gerais (MG), in order to direct public policies. An epidemiological study was carried out based on Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) using indicators with some relation to the process of illness and death caused by COVID-19. The indicators were selected by a literature search and categorized into: demographic, social, economic, health infrastructure, population at risk and epidemiological. The variables were collected in Brazilian government databases at the municipal level and evaluated according to MCDA, through the Program to Support Decision Making based on Indicators (PRADIN). Based on this approach, the study performed simulations by category of indicators and a general simulation that allowed to divide the municipalities into groups of 1–5, with 1 being the least vulnerable and 5 being the most vulnerable. The groupings of municipalities were exposed in their respective mesoregions of MG in a thematic map, using the software Tabwin 32. The results revealed that the mesoregion of Norte de Minas stands out with more than 40% of its municipalities belonging to group 5, according to economic, social and health infrastructure indicators. Similarly, the Jequitinhonha mesoregion exhibited almost 60% of the municipalities in this group for economic and health infrastructure indicators. For demographic and epidemiological criteria, the Metropolitana de Belo Horizonte was the most vulnerable mesoregion, with 42.9 and 26.7% of the municipalities in group 5, respectively. Considering the presence of a population at risk, Zona da Mata reported 42.3% of the municipalities in the most vulnerable group. In the joint analysis of data, the Jequitinhonha, Vale do Mucuri and Vale do Rio Doce mesoregions were the most vulnerable in the state of MG. Thus, through the outlined profile, the present study proved how socioeconomic diversity affects the vulnerability of the municipalities to face COVID-19 outbreak, highlighting the need for interventions directed to each reality.

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  1. Version published to 10.3389/fpubh.2021.586670
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.07.20.20158345: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    The selection of indicators with some relation to the process of illness and death caused by COVID-19 and their respective categories was conducted based on a literature review in the Scielo and Pubmed databases.
    Pubmed
    suggested: (PubMed, RRID:SCR_004846)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Another limitation is also related to the database available for consultation, since various indicators may be out of date, especially in small municipalities where the registration process does not occur or is not done properly. In addition, in the data tabulation process for MCDA, one of the steps consists in defining weights for the different data included, herein determining which ones would have different intensities of influence. However, the present study chose to keep all data with the same weight owing to the absence of evidence, showing which factors would have a higher or lower influence in the pandemic and the difficulty of stipulating the proportion of this influence. Therefore, it is advisable that the maps and the findings of this study are used only as an instrument of guidance for public policies with other existing tools, that is, they should not be used as the only resource. Also, a segmented analysis may be performed by category of indicators in order to avoid possible differences in the influence of indicators in the compilation of the final result. From the vulnerability analysis carried out, it is clear that the demands of the municipalities of Minas Gerais in the context of COVID-19 are different, varying according to the region in which they are located and their population size. Thus, a public policy planned for the state as a whole will have totally different applicability and effectiveness depending on the region or municipality in question. Theref...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.07.20.20158345v1 on medRxiv