Some zip codes have experienced very high levels of COVID-19 deaths while others have experienced very few COVID-19 deaths.

To understand potential reasons for why these differences exist, we look at the connection between the characteristics of a zip code and its death rate.

Income and previous health conditions have the highest correlation with COVID-19 death rates, but all of the zip code characteristics together play a role.

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Demographics

Severe previous health conditions in a zip code (Comorbidity Severity Index) is most strongly correlated with high zip code death rates due to COVID-19. (See: Comorbidity Analysis [link])

Median income, race/ethnicity, lack of health insurance, and household crowding are moderately correlated to high COVID-19 death rates by zip code.

Percentage of people over 65 is weakly correlated to high COVID-19 death rates in neighborhoods.

The fact that age is only weakly correlated emphasizes two things about the analysis:

(1) The data is at the zip code level, not the individual level.

While older individuals have a higher death rate, we do not find a strong connection between the proportion of people in a zip code over the age of 65 and the COVID-19 death rate in that area.

(2) These factors do not exist in isolation, but rather together at once.

For example, East Midtown (10022) and East New York (11239) have the highest proportion of people above the age of 65, 29%, but very different covid outcomes.

East Midtown’s death rate is relatively low (102 deaths per 100,000), while East New York’s is the highest in the city (717 deaths per 100,000). Unlike East Midtown, East New York has very low income and very severe comorbidities.

The difference in the death rate between these two zip codes shows that all of the characteristics, not just one, are important in understanding the death rate of a zip code– they work in combination, not isolation.

In addition, there are at least two pieces of information that are important but unavailable: data on where more people fled the city during quarantine and data on where more people worked from home.

Scatterplots illustrate visually the relationship between the zip code characteristics and COVID-19 death rate. Each data point represents a zip code.

The top five zip codes for the highest COVID-19 death rate are seen in red over the six characteristics.

The five zip codes with the highest COVID-19 death rates are seeing throughout NYC.

The percentiles show how these five areas compare to the other zip codes in NYC.

Looking at Edgemere/ Far Rockaway (11691), the table shows it is in the 78th percentile for Household Crowding.

This means Edgemere / Far Rockaway has more people per household than 78 percent of other zip codes in NYC.

Stars indicate that the zip code is in the top or bottom 25th percentile for all zip codes in NYC, depending on whether the characteristics is positively or negatively correlated with COVID-19 death rate.

Since household crowding is positively correlated with COVID-19 death rates (i.e. more people per household is associated with higher death rates), being in a high percentile is associated with a higher death rate.

Therefore anything above the 75th percentile gets a star.

Characteristics of the Zip Codes with Highest COVID-19 Death Rate

On the other hand, since income is negatively correlated with COVID-19 death rates (i.e. lower income zip codes tend to have higher death rates), being in a low percentile is associated with a higher death rate.

That means anything below the 25th percentile gets a star.

The strength of the color of the star indicates the strength of the correlation between that specific characteristic and COVID-19 death rate.

Notably, the zip code with the highest covid-19 death rate, East New York, has one of the lowest incomes (4th percentile), the highest percentage of people above the age of 65 (100th percentile), and the highest comorbidity index (100th percentile).

The map shows all of the zip code characteristics and the COVID-19 death rates in each zip code.

Each layer of the map shows a different zip code characteristic.

Darker red zip codes indicate a higher level for that characteristic relative to the level in lighter colored zip codes.

Clicking on the “Lack of Insurance” layer we observe dark red areas in the Bronx, revealing relatively higher rates of people between the ages of 18 and 64 without health insurance.

The lighter colors in Manhattan show the relatively low rates of people without health insurance in those zip codes.