Blacks and Hispanics Miss Covid-19 Tests and Vaccinations

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Data from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that blacks and Hispanics are at least twice as likely to die from Covid-19 as non-Hispanic whites and nearly three times as likely to be hospitalized. Blacks and Hispanics are also more likely than whites to be infected with Covid-19.

But Hispanics and blacks, with few exceptions in a few states, are more strongly represented among those who have been infected with or died from Covid-19 than among those who have been vaccinated, according to JHU data.

Without this data, authorities cannot know what they need to do to correct the disparities that can help the virus spread and prolong the pandemic. With it, the problem areas become clear.

Of the 37 states that track cases and vaccinations by ethnicity, Hispanics make up a smaller share of vaccinations than they do in all but four of the states. And of the following 39 states by race, blacks make up a smaller share of vaccinations than they do in all but six of the states.

Similar trends can be seen for testing, although only eight states are tracking the share of Covid-19 testing by race and ethnicity as well as cases and deaths.

Over the past six months or so, JHU has analyzed demographics on Covid-19 cases, deaths, tests and vaccinations made public by states. A new dashboard, released Tuesday, offers a state-by-state overview of data disaggregated by age, sex, race and ethnicity.

States report this information to the CDC, but the resulting data sets are limited by federal reporting requirements, Beth Blauer, executive director and co-founder of the Centers for Civic Impact at JHU, told CNN.

States are able to use – and publish – the data they collect beyond these federal regulatory constraints, and the JHU Dashboard that attempts to standardize the data that states publish may offer the most detailed demographic aspect of the various Covid-19 measures.

But while JHU’s data presents the persistent disparities in Covid-19 risk for certain demographic groups, it is also evident that there is also a persistent lack of available data needed to track and improve these disparities.

Inconsistent data complicates the effort

Compiling this data has been “complicated every moment,” Blauer told CNN. “It’s indicative of a lack of leadership and a lack of focus on data standardization.”

JHU found inconsistencies in the way racial and ethnic groups are defined between states, sometimes even between different measures within the same state data.

In addition, states have six different ways of tabulating tests – the number of people tested or the number of samples tested, for example – and six different ways of counting vaccinations as well.

Poor data collection frameworks are present across the country, which is a broader referendum on the public health system in the United States, Blauer told CNN. The share of data to which demographic details are attached has remained fairly consistently below 60%.

“It shows that the system itself is not learning,” she said.

Either way, collecting the data is a step in the right direction, experts say. “We always say data is what drives action,” Emily Zylla, senior researcher at the State Health Access Data Assistance Center at the University of Minnesota, told CNN.

And once it’s collected and published, the data needs to be linked to specific strategies and interventions to really bring about change, she said.

Illinois, for example, is one of the few states that tracks both testing and vaccination data by race and ethnicity.

“By collecting demographic data for tests, cases and deaths, we can see some of these hardest hit areas and deploy more resources, such as educational materials, community health workers and testing. efforts are needed, ”Melaney Arnold, head of public information at the state health department, told CNN.

“With lower vaccination rates among the African American and black population, we have reached out to places of worship and community organizations in these communities to set up mobile vaccination clinics, as well as contacts with fellowship organizations. and black sorority to help instill confidence in the safety and efficacy of vaccines. ”

Despite data limitations, trends emerge but are not corrected

“The data, even in its limited nature, really does confirm that if you are poor and if you are black or brown in this country, you are very limited in where you can access basic resources to even navigate decisions. personalities around Covid, ”Blauer said. CNN.

“Even when we knew there were major problems accessing tests, we did not correct them in the distribution of the vaccination.”

With one exception in Missouri, each of the states in which blacks and Hispanics are under-tested are also states in which blacks and Hispanics are under-immunized relative to their share of Covid-19 cases.

It took a while for the federal government to force states to collect demographic data for testing, Zylla said, and even after that, collecting this kind of data forces people to share information about themselves and themselves. implies a level of trust.

“Reaching this level of data doesn’t happen overnight,” she said.

The technology and resources that enable thorough record keeping differ from state to state, and health services are also strained by other tasks related to the pandemic.

“Local leaders are also frustrated. They carry the burden of having to be frontline responders,” JHU’s Blauer told CNN. “There are positives at the local level, both states and local communities. The question is, ‘Are we going to extrapolate these lessons learned?’ “

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