Another Covid-19 disparity: Black and Hispanic Americans are dying at younger ages than white Americans

Another Covid-19 disparity: Black and Hispanic Americans are dying at younger ages than white Americans

STAT reports:

Long after calls for more data on the disproportionate number of Covid-19 infections and deaths among Black Americans and Hispanic Americans, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday released limited additional information, which revealed non-white and Hispanic Americans under age 65 are dying in greater numbers than white people in that age group.

The agency reported that more than a third of deaths among Hispanic Americans (34.9%) and almost a third of deaths among non-white Americans (29.5%) were in people younger than 65. That compares to 13.2% among white people under that age.

Non-white Americans (median age 31) are younger as a whole than white Americans (median age 44), but Covid-19 deaths among those under age 65 exceeded their proportion of the population. The researchers found that 33.9% of people under 65 who died were Hispanic, yet they account for just 20% of the under-65 population in the U.S. Similarly, Black, Asian, and other non-white people accounted for 40.2% of deaths under 65, though they make up just 23% of those under 65 nationally. Black people accounted for 30% of deaths under age 65; Asian people and multiracial people accounted for 6.1% and 4.1%, respectively.

Those numbers are in line with both clinical and social factors tied to Covid-19 infections and deaths, said Utibe Essien, a physician and assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. He published a paper in May detailing the lack of comprehensive race, ethnicity, and language data related to Covid-19 testing, infection, and death rates. [Continue reading…]

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