GenderSci Lab COVID Project Updates and New Releases

  • Our newest and most extensive COVID paper is out now in the journal Social Science and Medicine. The paper—the first longitudinal study to quantify variation in COVID-19 gender/sex disparities across U.S. states—presents an analysis of the data gathered by the GenderSci Lab’s COVID-19 project. Analyzing 55 weeks of sex-disaggregated data derived from our US Gender/Sex COVID-19 Data Tracker, we show that sex disparities in COVID-19 mortality are not large, stable, or consistent across time and place. We explain the paper’s main findings in a blog post.

  • Our Communication Guide can help researchers and journalists discuss gender/sex differences in COVID-19 outcomes.

  • Our Gender/Sex Disparities in COVID-19 Outcomes Teaching Guide and Toolkit is an open access resources for educators who want to address gender and other demographic social variables in their courses.

  • Read our Matters Arising piece published in Nature in Sept. 2021, which dismantles a prominent claim asserting significant sex differences in immune response to COVID-19. On our blog, we walk through our analysis of the problems with the sex differences study.

  • See our US State COVID-19 Report Card, where we reported on available socially relevant data in US COVID deaths and our accompanying Health Affairs blog and GenderSci Lab blog on why such data is critical to understand COVID disparities.

  • Check out The New York Times article that mentions our tracker and discusses the disproportionate impacts of Covid-19 across different populations.

U.S. Gender/Sex COVID-19 Data Tracker

Note that this Tracker is no longer live.

From April 13, 2020 to November 29, 2021, the GenderSci Lab’s Gender/Sex COVID Data Tracker reported up-to-date and historical gender/sex-disaggregated data on COVID-19 cases and fatalities for 50 US States and 2 US Territories.

We reported weekly and cumulative US state-level gender/sex-disaggregated COVID-19 cases and fatality data from mid-April 2020 through November 2021, manually extracted each week from publicly-available state public health departments. 

This Tracker provides the following data tables:

For more on our methodology, click here.

We note that data refer to COVID-19 among people categorized as female and male and the nuances of their sex-linked biology and gender identities are not known. For best practices in communicating about gender/sex disparities in COVID outcomes, see our guide, "Communicating about COVID-19 and Sex Disparities: A Guide for Media, Scientists, Public Health Officials, and Educators”.

For research or media inquiries related to the Data Tracker or our COVID Project, email genderscilab@gmail.com.

Please cite the Tracker as:

“US Gender/Sex COVID-19 Data Tracker.” (2020) Harvard GenderSci Lab. Retrieved from https://www.genderscilab.org/gender-and-sex-in-covid19. [Date of retrieval]

COVID-19 Gender/Sex Mortality Rate Graphs

COVID-19 Cases and Deaths Disaggregated by Sex

Rates are measures that present the number of sex-disaggregated cases or deaths in each state scaled to the female and the male population of that state. 

The case rates graph shows the number of cases registered among women and men, per 100,000 individuals of that sex living in each state. 

The crude mortality rates graph shows the number of deaths registered among women and men, per 100,000 individuals of that sex living in each state.

COVID-19 Case and Mortality Rates Disaggregated by Sex

Rates are measures that present the number of sex-disaggregated cases or deaths in each state scaled to the female and the male population of that state. 

The case rates graph shows the number of cases registered among women and men, per 100,000 individuals of that sex living in each state. 

The crude mortality rates graph shows the number of deaths registered among women and men, per 100,000 individuals of that sex living in each state.

COVID-19 Age-Adjusted Mortality Rates Disaggregated by Sex

The age-adjusted mortality rates disaggregated by sex are mortality rates that take into account the age structure of each state. 

This is important because older age is a risk factor for COVID-19 mortality, but the age distribution and the sex distribution within age groups vary across states. Age-adjusted mortality rates are weighted averages that seek to adjust for this by taking into account the age distribution of the population of each state. 

Rates are reported per 100,000 population.

US Gender/Sex COVID-19 Data Tables

Note on Data Accuracy

Information in this table was accurate as of the date listed in the table. Due to retroactive updating of some state data sources, information may have changed. All research and publication conducted with this data should be validated.

Statement of Intellectual Labor

Tarrant collected and continues to collect these data, designed the data tracking page, and embedded links. Rushovich calculated the rates and created the graphs on this page. Danielsen contributed to data validation and rate calculations and drafted the methods. Danielsen drafted the text of this page and the GenderSci Lab as a whole contributed edits. Capri D'Souza, Kai DeJesus, Kai Jillson, Kelsey Ichikawa, May Moorefield, and Kashfia Rahman contributed to weekly data collection and validation. Nancy Krieger, PhD and Jarvis T. Chen, ScD provided feedback and assistance with the methodology and framing of the analyses.

Cite the Data Tracker:

“US Gender/Sex COVID-19 Data Tracker.” (2020) Harvard GenderSci Lab. Retrieved from https://www.genderscilab.org/gender-and-sex-in-covid19. [Date of retrieval]