Exploring the impact of cultural variability on COVID-19-related mortality: A meta-analytic approach

Deaths associated with COVID-19 shows a high degree of heterogeneity across different populations. An assessment of the global variability in COVID-19-attributable deaths is essential for predicting the health and economic impact of future outbreaks in different settings. Moreover, a comprehensive understanding of population-level predictors is also crucial for devising better-targeted and more appropriate emergency preparedness measures. While, demographic, economic and health-system capacity have featured prominently in recent work, cultural and behavioural characteristics have largely been overlooked. However, cultural differences likely shape both the public policy response and individuals’ behavioural responses to the crisis in ways that can impact infection dynamics and key health outcomes. To address this gap, we used meta-analytic methods to explore the global variability of COVID-19-attributed deaths during the first-wave of the pandemic and identified cultural/behavioural attributes (e.g., individualism, uncertainty avoidance) as independent predictors of COVID-19 fatalities after adjusting for important demographic, political, economic and health-system-related predictors.