COVID-19: A Barometer for Social Justice in New York City

Abstract

A recent study by researchers at Harvard University found that mortality ratios for Black and Latinx communities in the United States were 3.6 and 2.6 times higher, respectively, than the mortality ratio for non-Hispanic Whites, 1 a stark gap also reported in New York City (NYC). 2 During the COVID-19 pandemic, in NYC other similar patterns were found. Mortality rates for the Latinx and Black populations are 242 per 100 000 and 226 per 100 000, respectively, both more than twice those for White and Asian American residents. 3 Surveys conducted by the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy and others tell an even more alarming story. The gaps in mortality rates are just the tip of an iceberg of long-standing public health–related inequities among people of color in the United States. These discrepancies threaten all US citizens—wealthy and poor alike—and they have been exacerbated by the coronavirus. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print September 10, 2020: e1–e3. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2020.305939)