COVID-19 And Racial/Ethnic Disparities In Health Risk, Employment, And Household Composition.

Selden, Thomas M; Berdahl, Terceira A

We used data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey to explore potential explanations for racial-ethnic disparities in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) hospitalizations and mortality. Black adults in every age group were more likely than whites to have health risks associated with severe COVID-19 illness. However, whites were older on average than blacks. Thus, when all factors were considered, whites tended to be at higher overall risk compared to blacks, with Asians and Hispanics having much lower overall levels of risk compared to either whites or blacks. We explored additional explanations for COVID-19 disparities, namely differences in job characteristics and how they interact with household composition. Blacks at high risk of severe illness were 1.6 times as likely as whites to live in households containing health-sector workers. Among Hispanic adults at high risk of severe illness, 64.5 percent lived in households with at least one worker who was unable to work at home, versus 56.5 percent among blacks and only 46.6 percent among whites. [Editor's Note: This Fast Track Ahead Of Print article is the accepted version of the peer-reviewed manuscript. The final edited version will appear in an upcoming issue of Health Affairs.].