Racial, Economic, and Health Inequality and COVID-19 Infection in the United States

Objectives There is preliminary evidence of racial and social economic disparities in the population infected by and dying from COVID-19. The goal of this study is to report the associations of COVID-19 with respect to race, health, and economic inequality in the United States. Methods We performed...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities Vol. 8; no. 3; pp. 732 - 742
Main Authors: Abedi, Vida, Olulana, Oluwaseyi, Avula, Venkatesh, Chaudhary, Durgesh, Khan, Ayesha, Shahjouei, Shima, Li, Jiang, Zand, Ramin
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 01.06.2021
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects:
Academic degrees
African Americans
African cultural groups
Comorbidity
Coronaviruses
Counties
COVID-19
COVID-19 - ethnology
COVID-19 - mortality
Death
Death & dying
Demographic variables
Demographics
Demography
Disability
Disease
Disease control
Ecological studies
Economic inequality
Economics
Education
Educational attainment
Epidemiology
Ethnic groups
Ethnicity
Female
Females
Health care access
Health disparities
Health services
Health Status Disparities
Higher education
Hispanic Americans
Humans
Impact analysis
Inequality
Infections
Low income groups
Male
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Minority & ethnic groups
Mobility
Mortality
Mortality rates
Pandemics
People with disabilities
Population
Poverty
Quality of Life Research
Race
Racial differences
Racial Groups - statistics & numerical data
Racial inequality
Risk Factors
Secondary schools
Social distancing
Social factors
Social Inequality
Social Structure
Socioeconomic Factors
United States - epidemiology
Urban areas
Urban poverty
Workforce
United States
United States > US
COVID-19
Health status disparities
Healthcare disparities
United States
Socioeconomic factors
Economic inequality
Population-based analysis
Ecological-based study
Racial disparity
ISSN:2197-3792, 2196-8837, 2196-8837
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Objectives There is preliminary evidence of racial and social economic disparities in the population infected by and dying from COVID-19. The goal of this study is to report the associations of COVID-19 with respect to race, health, and economic inequality in the United States. Methods We performed an ecological study of the associations between infection and mortality rate of COVID-19 and demographic, socioeconomic, and mobility variables from 369 counties (total population, 102,178,117 [median, 73,447; IQR, 30,761–256,098]) from the seven most affected states (Michigan, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, Louisiana, Massachusetts). Results The risk factors for infection and mortality are different. Our analysis shows that counties with more diverse demographics, higher population, education, income levels, and lower disability rates were at a higher risk of COVID-19 infection. However, counties with higher proportion with disability and poverty rates had a higher death rate. African Americans were more vulnerable to COVID-19 than other ethnic groups (1981 African American infected cases versus 658 Whites per million). Data on mobility changes corroborate the impact of social distancing. Conclusion Our study provides evidence of racial, economic, and health inequality in the population infected by and dying from COVID-19. These observations might be due to the workforce of essential services, poverty, and access to care. Counties in more urban areas are probably better equipped at providing care. The lower rate of infection, but a higher death rate in counties with higher poverty and disability could be due to lower levels of mobility, but a higher rate of comorbidities and health care access.
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ISSN:2197-3792
2196-8837
2196-8837
DOI:10.1007/s40615-020-00833-4