Black Americans vaccinated at lower rates than white Americans
Black Americans are receiving C OVID -19 vaccination sat dramatically lower rates than white Americans in the first weeks of the chaotic rollout, according to a new KHN analysis.
About 3% of Americans have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine so far. But in 16 states that have released data by race, white residents are being vaccinated at significantly higher rates than Black residents, according to the analysis — in many cases two to three times higher.
In the most dramatic case ,1.2% of white Pennsylvanians had been vaccinated as of Jan. 14, compared with 0.3% of Black Pennsylvanians.
The vast majority of the initial round of vaccines has gone to health care workers and staffers on the front lines of the pandemic — a workforce that's typically racially diverse made up of physicians, hospital cafeteria workers, nurses and janitorial staffers.
If the roll out were reaching people of all races equally, the shares of people vaccinated whose race is known should loose ly align with the demographics of health care workers. But in every state, Black Americans were significantly underrepresented among people vaccinated so far.
Access issues and mistrust rooted in structural racism appear to be the major factors leaving Black health care workers behind in the quest to vaccinate t he nation. The unbalanced uptake among what might seem like a relatively easy-to-vaccinate workforce doesn't bode well for the rest of the country's dispersed population.
Black, Hispanic and Native Americans are dying from COVID-19 at nearly three times the rate of white Americans, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analysis. And non-Hispanic Black and Asian healthcare workers are more likely to contract COVID-19 and to die from it than white workers. (Hispanics can be of any race.)
“My concern now is if we don't vaccinate t he population that's highest- risk, we're going to see even more disproportional death sin Black and brown com mu nities,” said Dr. Fola May, a University of California, Los Angeles physician and health equity researcher. “It breaks my heart.”
Dr. Ta is on Bell, a University of Virginia Health Sys temp hy sici an who serve son its vaccination distribution committee, stressed that the hesitancy among some Blacks about getting vaccinated is not monolithic. Nurses he spoke with were concerned it could damage their fertility, while a Black co-worker asked him about the safety of the Moderna vaccine since it was the company' s first such product on the market. Some floated conspiracy theories, while other Black
co-workers just wanted to talk to someone they trust like Bell, who is also Black.
But access issues persist, even in hospital systems. Bell was horrified to discover t hat members of environmental services — the janitorial staff — did not have access to hospital email. The vaccine registration information sent out to the hospital staff was not reaching them.
“That's what structural racism looks like ,” said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association .“Those groups were seen and not heard — nobody thought about it.”
UVA Health spoke sperson Eric Swenson said some of the janitorial crew were among the first to get vaccines and officials took additional steps to reach those not typically on email. He said more than 50% of the environmental services team has been vaccinated so far.
As the public health commissioner of Columbus, Ohio, and a Black physician, Dr. Mysheika Roberts has a test for any new doctor she sees for care: She makes a point of not telling them she's a physician. Then she sees if she's talked down to or treated with dignity.