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L.A. County gathering additional data on COVID-19 impact by race, ethnicity

by City News Service • April 14, 2020

LOS ANGELES  – The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Tuesday pushed to expedite and expand data gathering on the effect of the coronavirus on minority and impoverished communities, as well as essential workers continuing to serve the public during the crisis.

Supervisors Hilda Solis and Kathryn Barger co-authored a motion to review racial and ethnic demographic data on COVID-19 cases, including a breakdown by age group and socioeconomic status.

“The fact that many communities of color fare poorly in health outcomes, and are more susceptible to COVID-19, is not an accident,” Solis said. “Decades of institutional racism have made our communities more vulnerable, so we must consider this reality in our policy solutions. We need our public health experts to keep robust data collection on COVID-19 patients to ensure resources are distributed equitably to high-need areas.”

Department of Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer, who has been running point on the county’s health care response to the coronavirus, has already released some preliminary data showing a slightly higher rate of death among black county residents, but she highlighted the challenges involved in gathering good numbers.

An analysis by the Los Angeles Times showed a higher rate of infection among affluent communities that public health officials thought might be related to skewed access to testing.

“We’ve had very little success around gathering accurate information around testing,” Ferrer said. “The best we’ve been able to do to date is looking at zip code data.”

The team has been collecting information for two weeks, but despite an order from the health officer obligating testing sites to maintain data on race and ethnicity, Ferrer said the county has little control over how forms are filled out at commercial testing labs recruited to help.

“(We are) trying really hard to make sure that we’re not using the difficulty of getting data as an excuse for not understanding the issue,” Ferrer said.

The department is working to gather data not only on access to testing, but also rates of hospitalization and mortality rates across racial and ethnic groups.

Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans and Native Alaskans suffer from higher rates of chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension, and asthma, making them more susceptible to contracting COVID-19 or requiring hospitalization once exposed to the virus.

Immigrant families and others with few economic resources often live in close quarters that make it very difficult for anyone who is sick to self-isolate at home.

Barger said the data would inform how resources are focused and said the county would likely build on health education and intervention campaigns already in place to help disproportionately impacted communities.

“I believe that we are all in this together,” Barger said, noting that the first look at the numbers made “clear to us that this COVID-19 was impacting minorities far more than any other population.”

The motion originally called for a report back in 30 days. After Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas asked for a seven-day turnaround and heard Ferrer’s comments on the work involved, the board settled on two weeks.

Based on Ridley-Thomas’ motion, researchers will also seek data specific to essential employees who have continued to work with the public at critical businesses like grocery and drug stores.

“We must have real-time demographic and socioeconomic data so that we can identify particularly vulnerable populations and allocate resources where they are needed most,” Ridley-Thomas said.

Ridley-Thomas asked that the county health department’s Center for Health Equity contextualize the numbers and called for partnerships with academic and community organizations to guide the analysis.

He said the work is particularly important given the size of Los Angeles County. Given shifts in the earliest reported data, he urged everyone to avoid drawing conclusions until the results are in.

“We send a significant signal in terms of what we do and how we report it,” he said.

–

Filed Under: Home, Los Angeles County, Politics

13 comments for "L.A. County gathering additional data on COVID-19 impact by race, ethnicity"

  1. Alexis says

    April 17, 2020 at 9:35 am

    Prejudice is an abstract misapprehension only in mind. Conversely, when prejudice is put into action, it is called discrimination, “institutional racism.” It is a consequence of lack of knowledge, information, ignorance, and stereotyping. The root cause of racism is greed and selfishness and engender fear and hatred.

  2. Ron says

    April 15, 2020 at 12:19 pm

    So what’s institutional RACISM? Just Some made up word the Left like to blame Whitey.

    • William says

      April 15, 2020 at 1:19 pm

      You’re not well, Ron. Get help.

      • Ron says

        April 15, 2020 at 4:57 pm

        Liberalism is a Cancer.

        • William says

          April 15, 2020 at 5:40 pm

          Get well, Ron. You are at high-risk for the TRUMP-45 virus. It lowers your IQ. I mean, it has lowerd your IQ. Your posts show it.

          • Trumpist#1 says

            April 15, 2020 at 11:49 pm

            My brain was addled before I liked Trump.

          • Ron says

            April 16, 2020 at 7:07 am

            Trump is the best PRESIDENT ever!!! Puts America First. Gave us the best economy EVER!!! So Go Away Little Snowflake Fruitcake Liberal!!!

          • Trumpist#1 says

            April 16, 2020 at 8:30 am

            What Ron said. Ron for mayor!

        • Stinger says

          April 16, 2020 at 9:16 pm

          Liberalism is what founded this country. Conservative traitors tried to stay with the King.

          Guess things ain’t so different, after all…

          • Trumpist#1 says

            April 17, 2020 at 9:19 am

            You conflate obsolete liberalism with your radical socialism.

            Demo-rats like you want to regulate, tax and control us in your nanny states and take away our personal freedoms. Never going to happen (unless you live here in the People’s Socialist Republic of Mexifornia).

  3. Ron says

    April 15, 2020 at 7:15 am

    Must be one racist virus. Doesn’t like the Chinese, Italians, Whites, Brown’s Blacks, or Prince Charles. So what about poor White PEOPLE?

    • William says

      April 17, 2020 at 6:24 pm

      Hey, Ron

      Poor white males are on their way out, either from opioids, suicides by firearm or poor habits affecting their health. They’re doing it to themselves and looking to blame someone or something other than themselves. I meant “…you are…”.

      Intermarriage for white women is preferable to hooking up with whiny white guys like you and many others of your ilk.

      You are likely in one of those catagories, Ron. Plus, white women are looking elsewhere for men to father their offspring instead of white guys who are going extinct.

      What Ron? You expect the government to fix things for you? Isn’t that communism or some other “ism” that offends you?

      Now that you clear about your problem……

  4. AV Illegal says

    April 14, 2020 at 6:24 pm

    58.7% Hispanic, 20.6% White, 13.1% Black……Hispanics are not much of a minority anymore huh. Why do they still get called a minority?

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