Pitch
Acording to the US Census Bureau, white and Black/African American people both account for 46.0% of the population of DC. Yet, the COVID-19 cases data shows a completly different picture: cases among the Black population double the cases of the white population.
Upon some reaserch, I realized that the racial disparity between Black and white people in the District of Columbia, is the highest in the nation, according to ABC7.
A study published this week (Ethnicity and clinical outcomes in COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis) looked into how patients from ethnic minority groups are disproportionately affected by COVID-19. It offers a few possible insights for this correlation:
- “Individuals from ethnic minority backgrounds are more likely to live in larger household sizes comprised of multiple generations.”
- “They are also more likely to have lower socioeconomic status, which may increase the likelihood of living in overcrowded households, or accommodation with shared facilities or communal areas
- “individuals from ethnic minority backgrounds are more likely to be employed as essential workers, or less able to work from home, and as a result have continued to have contact with others through work or commuting.”
I would like to take into account these possible explanation factors and analizy how they apply to DC, in order to understand why the region of the US in specific has such a high disparity when it comes to the spread of COVID-19.
I would like to get in contact with epidemiology specialists who know this area well and with someone from DC Health, as well as organizations like the activist group DC Fiscal Policy Institute, which promotes opportunity and widespread prosperity for all residents of the District of Columbia, in order to piece all of this together.
“The clear evidence of increased risk of infection amongst ethnic minority groups is of urgent public health importance,” Dr. Shirley Sze, National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) academic clinical lecturer and a lead author of the paper told Business Insider.