Widening Social and Health Inequalities During the COVID-19 Pandemic

作者：Leighton C. Ku, Erin Brantley · 发表于：JAMA Health Forum · 年份：2020 · DOI：10.1001/jamahealthforum.2020.0721 · 被引用次数：35 · 研究领域：Food Security and Health in Diverse Populations

The COVID-19 pandemic and efforts to flatten the curve have shaken the nation's health, social, and economic systems and widened health and social disparities.For example, age-adjusted COVID-19 mortality rates are far higher for African American and Latino patients than white patients.1 But recent data show that economic and social disparities have also widened in relation to racial/ethnic, educational, and immigration status. Employment TrendsAccording to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), between February 2020 -before the COVID-19 period-and April 2020, the overall unemployment rate surged from 3.5% in February to 14.7% in April, an 11.2-percentage-point increase.2 But unemployment rose even more quickly for some groups.Our analysis shows that unemployment among Latinos climbed 14.5 percentage points, from 4.4% to 18.9%.Both white and African American adults experienced 11-percentage-point increases, but unemployment in the black community was consistently higher than in the white community (16.7% vs 13.5% in April).Unemployment rates among Asian Americans almost sextupled, from 2.5% to 14.5%.Two additional factors drove disparities: immigration and educational status.Much larger increases occurred among those with less education; unemployment soared from 5.7% to 21.2% in April for those with less than a high school education, vs from 1.9% to 8.4% for college graduates.Unemployment among foreign-born adults rose 12.9 percentage points, from 3.6% in February to 16.5% in A...