Author: Mariana

Hispanics/Latinos represent only 9% of the population but account for 26% of all cases in the state. A lot of them work in the construction sector, one that was deemed ‘essential’ during the pandemic even though construction sites are considered “high-risk” settings for the disease

Mariana Janjácomo

North Carolina’s construction sites have contributed to form one of the state’s most glaring disparities when it comes to ethnicity and Covid-19: the high prevalence of cases among the Hispanic community. Hispanics represent only 9% of the population but account for 26% of all Covid-19 cases in the state. One of the main factors that led to this situation is the fact that there are higher proportions of Hispanic workers in sectors that are considered essential, including the construction sector.

On its website, the North Carolina Department of Health’s Covid-19 Response team admits that “farms and meat and poultry processing plants along with construction sites throughout North Carolina appear to be high-risk settings for transmission of Covid-19 due to the nature of the work, the challenge for employees to practice social distancing and the continuous nature of the plant operations”.

According to Fiorella Horna, from El Centro Hispano, a Latino nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening the community of Hispanics and Latinos in North Carolina, the big issue with construction workers is the transportation to construction sites. “A lot of those workers share transportation to and from sites, they are taken by the contractors or the employers and sometimes those vehicles are packed, so that is where a lot of the concern is.”

So far, North Carolina registered 18 reported clusters of Covid-19 in construction workplaces, according to state data. What officials consider a cluster is a minimum of five cases with illness onsets or initial positive results within a 14-day period and plausible epidemiologic linkage between cases. The manufacturing sector had the highest number of clusters in the state: 74. But what draws attention to the clusters in construction sites is that these happened mainly in places where the percentage of Hispanics is higher than the average.

A bubble of clusters in construction sites happened in Charlotte, the largest city of North Carolina, which belongs to Mecklenburg County. Hispanics represent 14% of the population in and 21% of all cases of Covid-19 in the county. Officials there also admit that at least a big part of that situation in Mecklenburg County is due to the fact that Hispanics work in jobs considered essential, mainly in the construction sector.

Financial insecurity

Besides practical worries about the logistics of the job, such as the means of transportation of these workers, another issue that has contributed to the clusters in construction sites is the financial insecurity that a lot of them struggle with. “Some workers are just worried that if they get sick, they will have to miss days of work and then get no payment”, said Fiorella Horna. “There are construction employers who provide healthcare and all the right warranties to workers, but there are some small businesses that just don’t do that. Then those employers tell workers that they should get tested if they feel symptoms, but some workers just don’t do that, because they actually don’t want to find out if they are sick.”

Besides contributing to the transmission of the disease, a scenario like this is also worrying because it means that even if those workers suspect they are sick, they will not look for a doctor until the aggravation of symptoms — which is extremely dangerous. In order to try to avoid clusters of Covid-19 in construction sites, the Charlotte Commercial Construction Coalition (4C), a coalition of more than 30 Charlotte-area general contractors defined in April a series of rules that employers and employees of the sector should follow. But those are not enough to tranquilize the workers.

Not a new problem

The thing is the worrying situation of Hispanics during the pandemic of Covid-19 in North Carolina is, of course, a 2020 issue. But being more affected by workplace injuries and illness unfortunately is nothing new to the Hispanic community. Data from “Death on the Job 2020”, a report from AFL-CIO (The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations), shows that 67% of Latinos killed on the job were immigrants; their job fatality rate was higher than the national average. In 2018, there were 961 deaths of Hispanics because of fatal work injuries. Of those, 294 occurred within the construction industry.

The same document also shows that Hispanics represent the largest number of people affected by Covid-19 by population size: 3.5 million persons were living in the hotspot counties around the country that were examined by the research. The report highlights the responsibility of the agencies in charge of enforcing working conditions and the federal administration: there were simply no standard procedures regarding that to follow across the country during this pandemic.

According to CPWR (The Center for Construction Research and Training), a nonprofit dedicated to reducing occupational injuries, illnesses, and fatalities in the construction industry, in 2015 there were 2.8 million Hispanics working in construction in the United States. About 73% of them were born outside the U.S. Which brings its own set of challenges.

More concerns and barriers — and a few solutions

“Language barriers and the spread of misinformation are a huge problem in general, of course, but also one that worries a lot when we think about the situation of immigrants in North Carolina”, explained Alison Kuznitz, a journalist at the local newspaper The Observer who has been covering the pandemic in Mekclenburg County since the early days of the disease. She also said that she witnessed efforts by the government to reach those populations.“They are doing campaigns in Spanish and briefings with Spanish subtitles; actually not only Spanish but they are translating the campaigns to ten different languages because we have immigrants from other parts of the world who don’t speak English nor Spanish.”

Grassroots organizations and food pantries have also been of huge help on not only giving access to meals to families of workers who lost their jobs, but also on bridging the communication gap between the state, the health professionals and the immigrant communities. Fiorella Horna, from El Centro Hispano, said the organization used funds received from federal Covid-19 relief to hire what they call “promotoras de salud”: these are women who serve as community wellness workers. Their job is to be in close contact both with the healthcare professionals and with the Hispanic community to eliminate the language barrier and combat misinformation.

Although it is still high, the percentage of Covid-19 cases among the Hispanic community in North Carolina has already been higher — it reached 46% of all cases in the state in July. Fiorella said that while she recognizes that the work of the “promotoras” may have been one of the reasons behind the percentage going down, she likes to remind people that this is still a public health issue, so the state has responsibility over it. “We can help, but we can’t be solely responsible for shifting numbers, of course. We believe that is being done collectively.”

She also commented that the work that El Centro Hispano did was an example of North Carolina’s strategy of infusing money on non-profits across the state to reach the Latino community. The fight against Covid-19 is far from over yet, of course. But a new one has already begun: fighting to keep and expand the rights and benefits that were obtained during this health crisis.

“A lot of the reasons why this pandemic affected Latinos at a disproportionate rate are systemic reasons. So now we must continue to advocate, we must continue to inform the decision-makers about all the challenges this community faces always, not only during the pandemic”, said Fiorella Horna. “We want changes that are made now thinking about the future, not only in the face of an immediate threat.”

NOTE: I still need to revise my visuals. I wasn’t able to that this week because we had final work for our thesis in Studio 20.

North Carolina: how construction sites contributed to Covid-19 cases among Hispanics

Hispanics/Latinos represent only 9% of the population but account for 28% of all cases in the state. A lot of them work in the construction sector, one that was deemed ‘essential’ during the pandemic even though construction sites are considered “high-risk” settings for the disease

Mariana Janjácomo

North Carolina’s construction sites have contributed to form one of the state’s most glaring disparities when it comes to ethnicity and Covid-19: the high prevalence of cases among the Hispanic community. Hispanics represent only 9% of the population but account for 28% of all Covid-19 cases in the state — and this percentage used to be even higher. In July, for example, Hispanics were 46% of all Covid-19 cases in North Carolina. One of the main factors that led to this situation is the fact that there are higher proportions of Hispanics working in essential jobs that make social distancing difficult. One of them is the construction sector, deemed ‘essential’ during the entire pandemic.

On its website, the North Carolina Department of Health’s Covid-19 Response team admits that “farms and meat and poultry processing plants along with construction sites throughout North Carolina appear to be high-risk settings for transmission of Covid-19 due to the nature of the work, the challenge for employees to practice social distancing and the continuous nature of the plant operations”.

According to Fiorella Horna, from El Centro Hispano, a Latino nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening the community of Hispanics and Latinos in North Carolina, the big issue with construction workers was the transportation to construction sites. “A lot of those workers share transportation to and from sites, they are taken by the contractors or the employers and sometimes those vehicles are packed, so that is where a lot of the concern is.” Fiorella added that there was a bubble of clusters in construction sites in Charlotte, the largest city of North Carolina.

Charlotte is part of Mecklenburg County, one of the two main urban counties in the state. There, the percentage of Hispanics is bigger than the general in the state — Hispanics represent 14% of the population in the county and only 9% in the state. And in there, too, the rate of Covid-19 cases among them is disproportionate: 21% of all cases in the county are among the Hispanic community. County officials also admit that at least a big part of that is because Hispanics work in jobs considered essential, mainly in the construction sector.

Another issue that has contributed to clusters of Covid-19 among the Hispanic community is financial insecurity, workers who find themselves in a very difficult financial situation while afraid that they will get sick and have to miss work. “There are construction employers that provide healthcare and all the right warranties to workers, but there are some small businesses that just don’t do that,” explained Fiorella Horna. “Then those small businesses tell workers that they should get tested if they feel symptoms, but some workers just don’t do that, because if they are sick, they don’t want to find out. They don’t want to miss a day of work and get no payment.” Besides contributing to the transmission of the disease, a scenario like this is also worrying because it means that the patient won’t look for a doctor until the aggravation of symptoms, which is extremely dangerous.

Another factor for worry among Hispanics, according to the Mecklenburg County officials, are the household conditions. Essential workers who are more exposed to the virus can spread the disease to their immediate family members. If they live not only with their kids, but also with their parents or grandparents, that creates multigenerational transmission, which can be very dangerous.

In order to try to avoid construction sites becoming clusters of Covid-19, the Charlotte Commercial Construction Coalition (4C), a coalition of more than 30 Charlotte-area general contractors defined in April a series of rules that employers and employees of the sector should follow. But those are not enough to tranquilize the workers. So far, North Carolina registered 18 reported clusters in construction workplaces, according to state data. What they consider a cluster is a minimum of 5 cases with illness onsets or initial positive results within a 14-day period and plausible epidemiologic linkage between cases.

More concerns and barriers

The decision of considering construction workers as essential workers was, from the beginning, a source of safety concerns that ranged from household to transportation and workplace conditions. “Some people started to express their concerns that construction sites would transform into clusters because of transportation and workplace conditions. It’s not rare to see a lot of these workers sitting in a pickup truck together”, said Alison Kuznitz, a journalist at the local newspaper The Observer who has been covering the pandemic in Mecklenburg County since the beginning.

Kuznitz said she witnessed some efforts by the government to reaching the Hispanic population in the county. “They are doing campaigns in Spanish and briefings with Spanish subtitles; actually not only Spanish but they are translating the campaigns to ten different languages because we have immigrants from other parts of the world who don’t speak English nor Spanish.” According to her, grassroots organizations and food pantries have also been of huge help, since so many workers lost their jobs because of the pandemic or were unable to work due to the long-lasting effects of the disease.

Fiorella Horna, from El Centro Hispano, said the organization used funds received from federal Covid-19 relief to hire new community wellness workers, all women, known among the Hispanic community as “promotoras de salud”. These women work in close contact with the Hispanics bringing quality information and making the bridge between them and the health care services in the region. It is a way of eliminating the language barrier.

Fiorella said while she recognizes that the work of the “promotoras” may have been one of the reasons why the percentage of cases among the Hispanic community in North Carolina went down from 46% in July to 28% in November, it is still a public health issue — and the state has its responsibility over it. “We can help, but we can’t be solely responsible for shifting numbers, of course. We believe that was done collectively.”

She also commented that the work that El Centro Hispano did was an example of North Carolina’s strategy of infusing money on non-profits across the state to reach the Latino community. “Now we continue to advocate, we continue to inform the decision-makers about all the challenges we face so that changes are made now thinking about the future, not only in the face of an immediate threat.”

Not a New Problem

The worrying situation of Hispanics during the pandemic of Covid-19 in North Carolina is, of course, an issue specific to 2020. But suffering from workplace injuries and illnesses is nothing new to Hispanics. Data from “Death on the Job 2020”, a report from AFL-CIO (The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations), shows that 67% of Latinos killed on the job were immigrants; their job fatality rate was higher than the national average. In 2018, there were 961 deaths of Hispanics because of fatal work injuries. Of those, 294 occurred within the construction industry.

The same document also shows that Hispanics represent the largest number of people affected by Covid-19 by population size: 3.5 million persons were living in the hotspot counties around the country that were examined by the research. The report highlights the responsibility of the agencies in charge of enforcing working conditions and the federal administration. There were no standard procedures regarding that to follow across the country during this pandemic.

According to CPWR (The Center for Construction Research and Training), a nonprofit dedicated to reducing occupational injuries, illnesses, and fatalities in the construction industry, in 2015 there were 2.8 million Hispanics working in construction in the United States. About 73% of them were born outside the U.S..

NOTE: I need more interviews! This was not my original pitch. I came across this story as I was doing research and interviews for my first idea, about the death rate among the Black population, and I realized that this story was more specific and “newsworthy”, meaning this is not only explained by racism, I have more to explore here. But because I pivoted and there was Thanksgiving week in the way, I couldn’t get more interviews.

North Carolina: how construction sites contributed to Covid-19 cases among Hispanics

Hispanics/Latinos represent only 9% of the population but account for 29% of all cases in the state. A lot of them work in the construction sector, one that was deemed ‘essential’ during the pandemic even though construction sites are considered “high-risk” settings for the disease

Mariana Janjácomo

North Carolina’s construction sites have contributed to form one of the state’s most glaring disparities when it comes to ethnicity and Covid-19: the high prevalence of cases among the Hispanic community. Hispanics represent only 9% of the population but account for 29% of all Covid-19 cases in the state — and this percentage used to be even higher. In July, for example, Hispanics were 46% of all Covid-19 cases in North Carolina. One of the main factors that led to this situation is the fact that there are higher proportions of Hispanics working in essential jobs that make social distancing difficult. One of them is the construction sector, deemed ‘essential’ during the entire pandemic.

Anyone who accesses the North Carolina Department of Health’s Covid-19 response can learn the following information: “farms and meat and poultry processing plants along with construction sites throughout North Carolina appear to be high-risk settings for transmission of Covid-19 due to the nature of the work, the challenge for employees to practice social distancing and the continuous nature of the plant operations”.

In Mecklenburg County, one of the two main urban counties in the state, the percentage of Hispanics is bigger than the general in the state — Hispanics represent 14% of the population in the county and only 9% in the state. And in there, too, the rate of Covid-19 cases among them is disproportionate: 21% of all cases in the county are among the Hispanic community. County officials also admit that at least a big part of that is because Hispanics work in jobs considered essential, mainly in the construction sector.

The decision of considering construction workers as essential workers was, from the beginning, a source of safety concerns that ranged from household to transportation and workplace conditions. “Some people started to express their concerns that construction sites would transform into clusters because of transportation and workplace conditions. It’s not rare to see a lot of these workers sitting in a pickup truck together”, said Alison Kuznitz, a journalist at the local newspaper The Observer who has been covering the pandemic in Mecklenburg County since the beginning.

Kuznitz said she witnessed some efforts by the government to reaching the Hispanic population in the county. “They are doing campaigns in Spanish and briefings with Spanish subtitles; actually not only Spanish but they are translating the campaigns to ten different languages because we have immigrants from other parts of the world who don’t speak English nor Spanish.” According to her, grassroots organizations and food pantries have also been of huge help, since so many workers lost their jobs because of the pandemic or were unable to work due to the long-lasting effects of the disease.

Another factor for worry among Hispanics, according to the Mecklenburg County officials, are the household conditions. Essential workers who are more exposed to the virus can spread the disease to their immediate family members. If they live not only with their kids, but also with their parents or grandparents, that creates multigenerational transmission, which can be very dangerous.

In order to try to avoid construction sites becoming clusters of Covid-19, the Charlotte Commercial Construction Coalition (4C), a coalition of more than 30 Charlotte-area general contractors defined in April a series of rules that employers and employees of the sector should follow. But those are not enough to tranquilize the workers. So far, North Carolina registered 18 reported clusters in construction workplaces, according to state data. What they consider a cluster is a minimum of 5 cases with illness onsets or initial positive results within a 14-day period and plausible epidemiologic linkage between cases.

Not a New Problem

The worrying situation of Hispanics during the pandemic of Covid-19 in North Carolina is, of course, a 2020 issue. But suffering from workplace injuries and illnesses is nothing new to Hispanics. Data from “Death on the Job 2020”, a report from AFL-CIO (The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations), shows that 67% of Latinos killed on the job were immigrants; their job fatality rate was higher than the national average. In 2018, there were 961 deaths of Hispanics because of fatal work injuries. Of those, 294 occurred within the construction industry.

The same document also shows that Hispanics represent the largest number of people affected by Covid-19 by population size: 3.5 million persons were living in the hotspot counties around the country that were examined by the research. The report highlights the responsibility of the agencies in charge of enforcing working conditions and the federal administration. There were no standard procedures regarding that to follow across the country during this pandemic.

According to CPWR (The Center for Construction Research and Training), a nonprofit dedicated to reducing occupational injuries, illnesses, and fatalities in the construction industry, in 2015 there were 2.8 million Hispanics working in construction in the United States. About 73% of them were born outside the U.S. (need a quote about what is needed to protect this population and what are the main challenges they face; low wages, language barriers…)

Ever since the beginning of the pandemic, Black people in North Carolina have been disproportionately affected. There are some hypotheses, according to a story from local radio station WFAE 90.7: in Mecklenburg County, for example, African Americans are three times more likely to have chronic diseases, according to Gibbie Harris, the Mecklenburg County Health Director. And according to Dr. Ophelia Garmon-Brown, a medical executive from the region, African Americans have less access to health care and lower rates of insurance coverage. Also, African Americans are often essential workers who couldn’t stop commuting during the height of the pandemic.

The story I refer to here was published in April; now, according to data from the CDRT, Black people in the state represent 29% of all of the Covid-19 deaths in the state, even though Black people account for only 21% of the population in North Carolina. The numbers of cases and hospitalizations have been growing in the state. In fact, North Carolina reported its highest single-day increase in Covid-19 cases this week.

According to Carolina Demography (https://www.ncdemography.org/2018/02/08/nc-in-focus-black-population-in-north-carolina-2016/), in 2016 there were 2.2 million Black or African American people in North Carolina. There were six counties in North Carolina with a Black population of 100,000 people or more. The county with the biggest Black population in the state was Mecklenburg County, with 344,627 people. It’s the county with the highest number of Covid-19 cases and deaths in North Carolina: 38,295 cases and 417 deaths, according to the Department of Health.

I’m getting in touch with both Carolina Demography and the Department of Health to gather more demographic data about the county: what is the average age of the population? Average income? Do they have data on how many hospitals/testing facilities there are in the county? I need all of that to write my story.

I’m also planning on interviewing the Mecklenburg County Health Director and the medical executive that the local radio interviewed for their story. I’m trying to find the contact of a community leader and a family that was affected by Covid. I know there is a very traditional Black college there, the Johnson C. Smith University, and I believe that could be a great starting point to get in touch with the community and with specialists that could give me a better understanding of what is happening in the county.

Wyoming is a predominantly white state. American Indians/Alaska Natives are a very small group, and the mortality rate because of Covid-19 in that group is more than twice the mortality rate among white people in the state. I wonder why. Is the American Indians/Alaska Natives population in Wyoming older than the white population? Do they have less access to healthcare services? How is that population being tested?

Black people are a minority in North Carolina; they account for only 21% of the population. But they represent 29% of all of the Covid-19 deaths of people with known race in the state. What is the reason for that? Do they live in places where access to healthcare is more difficult? Is it related to income? Maybe that population doesn’t even have decent access to testing and don’t discover they have the disease until it’s too late to try some sort of treatment. Maybe even when they are diagnosed, they can’t stop working, can’t rest or take the proper care to recover.

In North Carolina, Hispanic/Latinos are only 9% of the population, but they represent 29% of Covid-19 cases. What are the reasons that lead to this high number of cases among that population? I want to analyze more data about how Hispanic/Latinos live in North Carolina; do they live in the cities that were mostly impacted by the pandemic? How is their access to health systems? What about income and education? Do they participate in community gatherings that facilitate the spread of the virus?

I actually had trouble completing the tutorial; followed the instructions, but couldn’t get past this step.