Full Citation

Title: US racial inequality may be as deadly as COVID-19

Citation Type: Journal Article

Publication Year: 2020

ISBN:

ISSN: 0027-8424

DOI: 10.1073/PNAS.2014750117

NSFID:

PMCID:

PMID: 32839337

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic is causing a catastrophic increase in US mortality. How does the scale of this pandemic compare to another US catastrophe: racial inequality? Using demographic models, I estimate how many excess White deaths would raise US White mortality to the best-ever (lowest) US Black level under alternative, plausible assumptions about the age patterning of excess mortality in 2020. I find that 400,000 excess White deaths would be needed to equal the best mortality ever recorded among Blacks. For White mortality in 2020 to reach levels that Blacks experience outside of pandemics, current COVID-19 mortality levels would need to increase by a factor of nearly 6. Moreover, White life expectancy in 2020 will remain higher than Black life expectancy has ever been unless nearly 700,000 excess White deaths occur. Even amid COVID-19, US White mortality is likely to be less than what US Blacks have experienced every year. I argue that, if Black disadvantage operates every year on the scale of Whites’ experience of COVID-19, then so too should the tools we deploy to fight it. Our imagination should not be limited by how accustomed the United States is to profound racial inequality.

Url: https://www.pnas.org/content/117/36/21854

Url: https://www.pnas.org/content/117/36/21854.abstract

User Submitted?: No

Authors: Wrigley-Field, Elizabeth

Periodical (Full): Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Issue: 36

Volume: 117

Pages: 21854-21856

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Fertility and Mortality, Health, Population Health and Health Systems, Race and Ethnicity

Countries: