May 13, 2020

Every hour of every day, researchers learn more about the novel coronavirus and how it attacks the body. Alongside significant attention spotlighting the need for more ventilators to help keep patients breathing while they fight the disease, a growing body of knowledge now links COVID-19 and cardiovascular illness, including a heightened risk of COVID-19 patients dying from cardiac arrest.

“Better understanding how the coronavirus may impact the heart may save hundreds of thousands of lives,” said Loni Tabb, PhD, an associate professor in the Dornsife School of Public Health. “Considering the widely documented racial disparities in heart health among other areas exposed by this pandemic, we have a tremendous opportunity to close these gaps, and better direct national resources to communities that need it most in the fight against this devasting pandemic.”

Tabb and colleagues recently published a paper in Journal of the American Heart Association exploring the geographic hotspots of racial disparities in cardiovascular health among blacks and whites across the United States.

As lead author on the research, Tabb shares how better understanding where these concentrations of cardiovascular health problems are may reduce existing racial disparities and improve health for all in the fight against COVID-19. Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death in the United States.

Read the full Q&A with Loni Tabb on the Drexel News Blog: Q&A: Growing Links Between Cardiovascular Health and Risk of Complications from COVID-19.