In one of the largest data reviews on COVID-19 cases so far, researchers at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine found that age and chronic illness (cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity, in particular) were the leading factors that led to hospitalization for COVID-19 patients. The study, which looked at reports on 4,103 patients from March 1 through April 2, is currently under peer-review and has been pre-published online.

“The risk factors we identified for hospitalization in [COVID-19] are largely similar to those associated with any type of severe disease requiring hospitalization or ICU-level care, though we were surprised that cancer and chronic pulmonary disease did not feature more prominently in the risk models,” the researchers wrote in the study. “For instance, while advanced age was by far the most important predictor of hospitalization . . . 54% of hospitalized patients were younger than 65 years. This is typical of the hospitalization pattern in viral respiratory disease.”

In a separate study, researchers at NYU Langone Health found that patients under 60 were at a higher risk of hospitalization due to complications from COVID-19 if they were obese.