CIOs use data, tech to tackle racial disparities in healthcare

COVID-19 has pulled back the curtain on racial and economic disparities in healthcare, an issue that has plagued it for decades, according to Eliseo Pérez-Stable, M.D., director of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities.

In the 1930s, the U.S. created a “chain reaction of activities and policies” that have perpetuated differences When COVID-19 came to the U.S. in early 2020, people of color were automatically more at risk because of gaps in education and wealth. In “COVID-19 and Racial/Ethnic Disparities,” published in May 2020 in the online medical journal JAMA Network, Pérez-Stable, a co-author, assessed early COVID-19 data from residents in Chicago. He found that COVID-19 mortality rates were highest among Latinos and African Americans at 36 per 100,000 residents and 73 per 100,000 residents, respectively. The mortality rate of white residents was 22 per 100,000.

Race, income level, employment, underlying conditions and access to healthcare all play parts in contributing to differences in COVID-19 mortality rates. Underrepresented groups often work more jobs and take front-line roles, rather than quarantine at home and work remotely, thus increasing their risk, Pérez-Stable said.

“If you work in construction, you’ve got to go out; if you work in the supermarket, you’ve got to go out,” he said. “Those professions are disproportionately represented Indeed, roughly one-fourth of the U.S. adult population is college graduates and has grown in wealth and income, which Pérez-Stable said equates to more resources and better health. The top 20% to 25% have gotten “wealthier and healthier,” but income for the bottom 75% to 80% have stagnated, which has affected their access to healthcare, he said.

“What COVID-19 has done, it has shone a light on inequalities that have existed for decades and that have actually worsened since 1980,” he said. “If you look at the macro data of income and distribution and inequality, 1980 sort of marks a turning point of when the effort to decrease inequality, somehow those forces went the other way. We created more wealth for 20% of the population, and the rest of the population stood still or improved only slightly.”