Data Analytics Reveals Racial Disparities in COVID-19 Deaths

A new study by the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) leveraged age-adjusted and state-level data analytics and found that racial disparities are broader than previous research suggested.

“Because of structural racism, chronic diseases are much more common among the Black population compared to the White population, and for this reason, life expectancy for Black people is substantially less than that for White people,” said Dr. Michael Siegel, lead author of the study and professor of community health sciences at BUSPH, in a press release.

“If you ignore this fact, then it is going to appear that the COVID death rate is much higher among the White population because there are so many more older people. To get an accurate idea of the true disparity in death rates, you need to compare the COVID death risk of Black people and White people in a state at the same age.”

Researchers analyzed data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics, focusing on 35 US states. Only focusing on non-Hispanic White and non-Hispanic black populations, the study used linear regression analysis to compare COVID-19 death rates across the 35 states.

The study used a pre-existing state-level index of structural racism and used linear regression analysis to cross-reference it with racial disparities in state-level mortality rates. In addition, they explored the effects of disparities based on occupation, co-morbidities, and access to health care. 

When analyzing the age-adjusted rates alongside the crude rates, results showed racial disparity in COVID-19 deaths was significantly wider with the age-adjusted data. The study concluded that “relying on the crude death rates results in a marked underestimation of the magnitude of the racial disparity in COVID-19 mortality between the Black and White populations.”

Out of the 35 states included in the study, Michigan, New York, Minnesota, Florida, and Pennsylvania had the highest disparity ratios, according to the age-adjusted data. The states with the lowest disparity ratios were Oklahoma, Washington, Arkansas, Rhode Island, and Ohio.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Minnesota, Illinois, and Connecticut had the highest racism index, according to the state structural racism index.

“A scatterplot of this relationship for all 35 states showed a pattern of increasing racial disparities as the state structural racism index increased,” the study stated.

The study pointed out a flaw in the way previous research has looked at COVID-19 mortality rates, since they failed to use age-adjusted data to get a clearer picture of racial disparities. The pandemic has highlighted the stark health disparities that have always existed in a new way.

“Even if we could somehow equalize comorbidities between the White and Black populations, our results suggest that the racial disparity in COVID-19 death rates would still persist,” said Seigel, in the press release.

“These findings suggest that the only way to fully address the consequences of structural racism is to dismantle structural racism itself.”

In April, the CDC released a statement saying that systemic racism is now a public health crisis. Other studies have unveiled additional troubling racial disparities in health care, from an increased risk of heart disease to higher rates of premature stroke.