African-American COVID-19 Deaths ‘Disproportionately’ High in California
Data collected by the California Department of Public Health shows African-Americans account for 11 percent of COVID-19 deaths, while making up six percent of the state’s population
By KERRY CROWLEY | kcrowley@bayareanewsgroup.com
Bay Area News Group
April 17, 2020 at 8:47 a.m.
In the interest of public safety, critical coronavirus coverage is being provided free to all readers. Support reporting like this with a subscription to The Mercury News. Only 99¢ for a 3-month trial.
Coronavirus cases tracked on the basis of race show African-Americans represent a disproportionately higher number of deaths in California compared to their representation in the state’s population.
More than a week after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the California Department of Public Health would be tracking data that allows officials to analyze COVID-19 data on the basis of race and ethnicity, data has now been collected for 65 percent of confirmed coronavirus cases and 87 percent of deaths in the state.
According to that partial data released by the state health department Thursday, African-Americans and blacks — who make up six percent of California’s population — account for seven percent of the confirmed COVID-19 cases, and 11 percent of the deaths of people who have tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
Stephen Lockhart, the Chief Medical Officer at Sutter Health, said data compiled across the integrated network he oversees that serves 3.5 million patients in Northern California shows African-Americans who have tested positive for the coronavirus are also more likely to be hospitalized or require care in ICU units.
“We do have strong information suggesting that African-Americans were two and a half times the rate of non-Hispanic whites in terms of hospitalizations and ICU care,” Lockhart said. “They are definitely coming in sicker.”
The state has recorded a total of 26,182 positive tests for the coronavirus and 890 COVID-19-related deaths. As of Thursday, race and ethnicity data has now been collected for more than 750 people who have died in the state.
Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders represent “another group of heightened concern,” state health officials said in a statement Thursday, but added that the number of deaths in that population is small, which could limit statistical comparison.
Of the 87 percent of deaths so far tracked on the basis of race and ethnicity, 1 percent were Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. That group accounts for just 0.3 percent of the state’s population.
The Latinx/Hispanic community, which represents 39 percent of the state’s population, has accounted for 38 percent of confirmed COVID-19 cases, and 31 percent of the COVID-19 deaths. Meanwhile, whites — who make up 37 percent of the population — represent 31 percent of confirmed cases and 38 percent of deaths.
Asians, who represent 15 percent of the population, have accounted for 13 percent of the confirmed cases and 16 percent of the deaths.
Not all 58 counties have reported race data to the state, but the results thus far suggest African-Americans in California are dealing with a similar issue plaguing African-American communities around the country.
“We don’t want to give the impression that the African-American community is more susceptible to the virus,” Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, said last week. “We don’t have any data that suggests that. What our data suggests is they are more susceptible to more difficult and severe disease and poorer outcomes.”
What leads to the poor outcomes, such as a visit to the hospital, a stay in the ICU, or death?
Lockhart believes in the state of California — which has what he described as a “dogged devotion to the Affordable Care Act” — insurance coverage has proven less of an issue in terms of receiving care than socioeconomic status.
“We did some geospatial mapping and noted that compared to others, the majority of our African-American patients tended to be in the lower socioeconomic statuses,” Lockhart said. “We look at them both for the Bay Area and Sacramento and they were much more likely to be low-income than whites or Asians and even to some extent the Hispanic population as well.”
Many low-income workers are also in jobs that have been deemed essential under the current shelter-in-place orders, putting them in positions where they are more likely to be exposed to the virus. And at the same time, they might be less likely to seek care at an ambulatory, or outpatient, facility, Lockhart said.
“We have this idea of coverage, but we also have an idea of how people access the healthcare system,” Lockhart said. “In our own prior health equity work looking at the same demographic and how our African-American patients even for ambulatory care conditions accessed the healthcare system, it tended to be more on the hospital side than the ambulatory side.”
Newsom said last week the goal of collecting and analyzing data on the basis of race and ethnicity is to “make the data actionable.”
“In every category, we are doing more to be culturally competent in terms of our testing, our outreach, our communication and our capacity to deliver care to individuals that do get tested,” he said.
Data that tracks coronavirus cases and deaths by race informs decisions on administering care, allocating tests and determining what measures can be taken to get ahead of the curve, Lockhart said, pointing to a partnership to treat people with asthma developed between Sutter Health and LifeLong, as an example of the kind of community-based program that can serve as a model for addressing existing inequities related to COVID-19 treatment.
“We created a program to support (asthmatics) through medical advice, medication management, management home visits, all these sorts of things with race-concordant providers,” Lockhart said. “So with African-American providers going into the communities and providing this care, we were able to reduce our emergency department visits.”
Similar programs could target neighborhoods and communities to spread awareness about physical distancing, coronavirus testing and treatment options.
Of the five most populous Bay Area counties, only Santa Clara County is making race data for COVID-19 deaths publicly available. San Francisco and Alameda County have released statistics on the race and ethnicity of patients who have tested positive for COVID-19, but neither San Mateo County nor Contra Costa County have made any data on the basis of race and ethnicity available to the public.
“In the midst of a pandemic, we learn a lot, but it also probably raises as many questions as we have answers,” Lockhart said. “The key is going to be what do we do about it, how do we go forward from here and actually use this information to make a positive change.”
By KERRY CROWLEY | kcrowley@bayareanewsgroup.com
Bay Area News Group
April 17, 2020 at 8:47 a.m.
In the interest of public safety, critical coronavirus coverage is being provided free to all readers. Support reporting like this with a subscription to The Mercury News. Only 99¢ for a 3-month trial.
Coronavirus cases tracked on the basis of race show African-Americans represent a disproportionately higher number of deaths in California compared to their representation in the state’s population.
More than a week after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the California Department of Public Health would be tracking data that allows officials to analyze COVID-19 data on the basis of race and ethnicity, data has now been collected for 65 percent of confirmed coronavirus cases and 87 percent of deaths in the state.
According to that partial data released by the state health department Thursday, African-Americans and blacks — who make up six percent of California’s population — account for seven percent of the confirmed COVID-19 cases, and 11 percent of the deaths of people who have tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
Stephen Lockhart, the Chief Medical Officer at Sutter Health, said data compiled across the integrated network he oversees that serves 3.5 million patients in Northern California shows African-Americans who have tested positive for the coronavirus are also more likely to be hospitalized or require care in ICU units.
“We do have strong information suggesting that African-Americans were two and a half times the rate of non-Hispanic whites in terms of hospitalizations and ICU care,” Lockhart said. “They are definitely coming in sicker.”
The state has recorded a total of 26,182 positive tests for the coronavirus and 890 COVID-19-related deaths. As of Thursday, race and ethnicity data has now been collected for more than 750 people who have died in the state.
Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders represent “another group of heightened concern,” state health officials said in a statement Thursday, but added that the number of deaths in that population is small, which could limit statistical comparison.
Of the 87 percent of deaths so far tracked on the basis of race and ethnicity, 1 percent were Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. That group accounts for just 0.3 percent of the state’s population.
The Latinx/Hispanic community, which represents 39 percent of the state’s population, has accounted for 38 percent of confirmed COVID-19 cases, and 31 percent of the COVID-19 deaths. Meanwhile, whites — who make up 37 percent of the population — represent 31 percent of confirmed cases and 38 percent of deaths.
Asians, who represent 15 percent of the population, have accounted for 13 percent of the confirmed cases and 16 percent of the deaths.
Not all 58 counties have reported race data to the state, but the results thus far suggest African-Americans in California are dealing with a similar issue plaguing African-American communities around the country.
“We don’t want to give the impression that the African-American community is more susceptible to the virus,” Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, said last week. “We don’t have any data that suggests that. What our data suggests is they are more susceptible to more difficult and severe disease and poorer outcomes.”
What leads to the poor outcomes, such as a visit to the hospital, a stay in the ICU, or death?
Lockhart believes in the state of California — which has what he described as a “dogged devotion to the Affordable Care Act” — insurance coverage has proven less of an issue in terms of receiving care than socioeconomic status.
“We did some geospatial mapping and noted that compared to others, the majority of our African-American patients tended to be in the lower socioeconomic statuses,” Lockhart said. “We look at them both for the Bay Area and Sacramento and they were much more likely to be low-income than whites or Asians and even to some extent the Hispanic population as well.”
Many low-income workers are also in jobs that have been deemed essential under the current shelter-in-place orders, putting them in positions where they are more likely to be exposed to the virus. And at the same time, they might be less likely to seek care at an ambulatory, or outpatient, facility, Lockhart said.
“We have this idea of coverage, but we also have an idea of how people access the healthcare system,” Lockhart said. “In our own prior health equity work looking at the same demographic and how our African-American patients even for ambulatory care conditions accessed the healthcare system, it tended to be more on the hospital side than the ambulatory side.”
Newsom said last week the goal of collecting and analyzing data on the basis of race and ethnicity is to “make the data actionable.”
“In every category, we are doing more to be culturally competent in terms of our testing, our outreach, our communication and our capacity to deliver care to individuals that do get tested,” he said.
Data that tracks coronavirus cases and deaths by race informs decisions on administering care, allocating tests and determining what measures can be taken to get ahead of the curve, Lockhart said, pointing to a partnership to treat people with asthma developed between Sutter Health and LifeLong, as an example of the kind of community-based program that can serve as a model for addressing existing inequities related to COVID-19 treatment.
“We created a program to support (asthmatics) through medical advice, medication management, management home visits, all these sorts of things with race-concordant providers,” Lockhart said. “So with African-American providers going into the communities and providing this care, we were able to reduce our emergency department visits.”
Similar programs could target neighborhoods and communities to spread awareness about physical distancing, coronavirus testing and treatment options.
Of the five most populous Bay Area counties, only Santa Clara County is making race data for COVID-19 deaths publicly available. San Francisco and Alameda County have released statistics on the race and ethnicity of patients who have tested positive for COVID-19, but neither San Mateo County nor Contra Costa County have made any data on the basis of race and ethnicity available to the public.
“In the midst of a pandemic, we learn a lot, but it also probably raises as many questions as we have answers,” Lockhart said. “The key is going to be what do we do about it, how do we go forward from here and actually use this information to make a positive change.”
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