Why are African Americans being more affected by COVID?
Covid-19 has become the third-leading cause of death for African Americans this year. But what is the cause of the virus hitting this community harder than others?
More than 20,000 African Americans have died due to Covid-19 making it one of the highest causes of deaths in African American Communities.To put that into perspective only heart attacks and Cancer will kill more African Americans this year.
1. Racism and Healthcare
One of the main causes for this is due to the fact that generally less African Americans have access to Healthcare than white Americans.Overall, a larger proportion of white Americans have access to private healthcare which usually has a broader range of coverage options.
Furthermore, for the few African Americans who do have Health insurance they are subject to racism within the Healthcare service thus leading to less effective treatment.For example, Studies over the past couple of years highlight how the pain of Black patients is deemed less important than that of White Patients due to implicit bias and a shocking study also shed to light how around half of White medical trainees mistakenly believe Black patients to have thicker skin and less sensitive nerve endings than White Patients.
Moreover, due to the Occupational position of many African Americans they are employed in roles where they don’t have the option of paid sick leave.Thus making it difficult for them to economically justify seeing a medical professional in the first place.This shows us how Economic inequalities are heavily contributing to them rising threat of Covid in African American Communities.
2. Racism and the economy
Another, contributing factor is that African Americans are around twice as likely to be unemployed and among those who are employed many don’t have the luxury of being in roles where they have the option of working from the safety of their homes this is a trend also seen in the UK where a larger proportion of Key workers consists of Black British people thus they are at a greater risk.Statistics in American show that if you are Black in American you are around one and a half times more likely to not be able to quarantine at home due to your occupation.
3.In conclusion
Overall, these disparities between races which are deep rooted within the economy and Social Services of America, are having profound impacts on the African American Diaspora which finds itself hindered by systematic racism and economic inequalities preventing them from receiving even the most basic of healthcare or safety measures which could help reduce there exposure to Covid-19.
