INEQUALITY

Black Americans Are Hardest Hit By Coronavirus: Study

Inequality and ‘structural racism’ are likely to blame for wildly disproportionate rates of death in predominantly black counties, according to analysis.

African Americans are more likely to die from coronavirus in the United States than whites or other ethnic groups, according to a new study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed. Black Americans represent 13.4% of the American population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, but counties with higher black populations account for more than half of all Covid-19 cases and almost 60% of deaths, the study found. The team of epidemiologists and clinicians at four universities worked with amfAR, the AIDS research non-profit, and Seattle’s Center for Vaccine Innovation and Access, PATH, to analyze Covid-19 cases and deaths using county-level comparisons. Racial data is still lacking in many areas, and their analysis uses what data was available as of mid-April. “Social conditions, structural racism, and other factors elevate risk for COVID-19 diagnoses and deaths in black communities,” wrote the researchers, “Structural factors including health care access, density of households, unemployment, pervasive discrimination and others drive these disparities, not intrinsic characteristics of black communities or individual-level factors.”