Do geographic differences in collectivism relate to COVID-19 case and death rates? And if so, would they also replicate across states within arguably the most individualistic country in the world—the United States? Further still, what role might the U.S.'s history of ethnic strife and race-based health disparities play in either reinforcing or undermining state-level relations between collectivism and COVID-19 rates? To answer these questions, we examined archival data from 98 countries (Study 1) and the 48 contiguous United States (Study 2) on country/state-level collectivism, COVID-19 case/death rates, relevant covariates (per-capita GDP, population density, spatial dependence), and in the U.S., percent of non-Whites. In Study 1, country-level collectivism negatively related to both cases (r = −0.28) and deaths (r = −0.40) in simple regressions; however, after controlling for covariates, the former became non-significant (r_p = −0.07), but the latter remained significant (r_p = −0.20). In Study 2, state-level collectivism positively related to both cases (r = 0.56) and deaths (r = 0.41) in simple regressions, and these relationships persisted after controlling for all covariates except race, where a state's non-White population dominated all other predictors of COVID-19 cases (r_p = 0.35) and deaths (r_p = 0.31). We discuss the strong link between race and collectivism in U.S. culture, and its implications for understanding COVID-19 responses.

集体主义的地理差异与 COVID-19 病例和死亡率有关吗？如果是这样，它们是否也会在可以说是世界上最个人主义的国家——美国——的各个州复制？更进一步，美国的种族冲突和基于种族的健康差异的历史可能会在加强或破坏集体主义与 COVID-19 发病率之间的州级关系方面发挥什么作用？为了回答这些问题，我们检查了来自 98 个国家（研究 1）和 48 个美国本土（研究 2）的档案数据，涉及国家/州级集体主义、COVID-19 病例/死亡率、相关协变量（人均 GDP、人口密度、空间依赖性），以及美国非白人的百分比。在研究 1 中，在简单回归中，国家层面的集体主义与病例 ( r = -0.28) 和死亡 ( r = -0.40) 呈负相关；然而，在控制协变量后，前者变得不显着（ r _p = -0.07），但后者仍然显着（ r _p = -0.20）。在研究 2 中，在简单回归中，州级集体主义与病例 ( r = 0.56) 和死亡 ( r = 0.41) 呈正相关，并且在控制除种族以外的所有协变量后，这些关系仍然存在，其中一个州的非白人人口在所有变量中占主导地位。 COVID-19 病例 ( r _p = 0.35) 和死亡 ( r _p = 0.31) 的其他预测因素。我们讨论了美国文化中种族与集体主义之间的紧密联系，及其对理解 COVID-19 应对措施的影响。