COVID-19 Disparities: Racism & Social Inequity

Resource List

November 2, 2020 | Historical Environmental Racism, Structural Inequalities, and Dik’os Ntsaaígíí-19 (COVID-19) on Navajo Nation(link is external and opens in a new window) | Nicholet A. Deschine Parkhurst, Kimberly R Huyser, & Aggie J. Yellow Horse | Journal of Indigenous Social Development

October 15, 2020 | Halting Workplace COVID-19 Transmission: An Urgent Proposal to Protect American Workers(link is external and opens in a new window) | David Michaels & Gregory R. Wagner | The Century Foundation

October 13, 2020 | Reimagining safety in a pandemic: the imperative to dismantle structural oppression in Canada(link is external and opens in a new window) | Nikisha Khare, Farah Shroff, Blessing Nkennor and Baijayanta Mukhopadhyay | CMAJ

September 30, 2020 | The covid-19 recession is the most unequal in modern U.S. history(link is external and opens in a new window) | Heather Long,  Andrew Van Dam,  Alyssa Fowers and  Leslie Shapiro | The Washington Post

September 29, 2020 | Pandemic Highlights Deep-Rooted Problems in Indian Health Service(link is external and opens in a new window) | Mark Walker | New York Times

September 26, 2020 | Three-Part Spotlight Series: Is Death the Great Equalizer?(link is external and opens in a new window) | The Boston Globe

September 14, 2020 | For Prisoners in the West, the Virus and the Wildfires Are Colliding Threats(link is external and opens in a new window) | Tim Arango and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs | The New York Times

September 9, 2020 | Redlining and Neighborhood Health(link is external and opens in a new window) | National Community Reinvestment Coalition

September 8, 2020 | Covid-19 Death Rate among African Americans and Latinos Rising Sharply(link is external and opens in a new window) | Ed Pilkington | The Guardian

September 7, 2020 | Conditions of Immigration Detention Increase Risks for COVID-19 Disease Interactions(link is external and opens in a new window) | Bayla Ostrach, Kathleen Lynch, Ashley Houston, and Megan A. Carney | Medical Anthropology Quarterly

September 2, 2020 | Toward a Cure: Cities Declare Racism a Public Health Crisis(link is external and opens in a new window) | Tamara E. Holmes | COLORLINES

August 20, 2020 | ENOUGH: COVID-19, Structural Racism, Police Brutality, Plutocracy, Climate Change—and Time for Health Justice, Democratic Governance, and an Equitable, Sustainable Future(link is external and opens in a new window) | Nancy Krieger | AJPH

August 18, 2020 | Population Health in the Time of COVID-19: Confirmations and Revelations(link is external and opens in a new window) | Ana V. Diez Roux | The Milbank Quarterly

August 15, 2020 | To Talk About Racial Disparity and COVID-19, We Need to Talk About Class(link is external and opens in a new window) | Roberto R. Aspholm | Jacobin

August 11, 2020 | Racism’s Hidden Toll: In America, how long you live depends on the color of your skin(link is external and opens in a new window) | Gus Wezerek | The New York Times

August 5, 2020 | ‘Death by structural poverty’: US south struggles against Covid-19(link is external and opens in a new window) | Oliver Laughland | The Guardian

August 4, 2020 | Systemic racism, chronic health inequities, and COVID-19: A syndemic in the making?(link is external and opens in a new window) | Clarence Gravlee | American Journal of Human Biology

August 1, 2020 | Death by Racism(link is external and opens in a new window) | Sharrelle Barber | The Lancet Infectious Diseases

August 1, 2020 | 12 People in a 3-Bedroom House, Then the Virus Entered the Equation  Overcrowding, not density, has defined many coronavirus hot spots(link is external and opens in a new window) | Conor Dougherty | The New York Times

July 30, 2020 | The Coronavirus Has Intensified Systemic Economic Racism Against Black Americans(link is external and opens in a new window) | Steven Greenhouse | The New Yorker

July 30, 2020 | Native Americans Feel Devastated by the Virus Yet Overlooked in the Data(link is external and opens in a new window) | Kate Conger, Robert Gebeloff and Richard A. Oppel Jr. | The New York Times

July 29, 2020 | Structurally vulnerable neighbourhood environments and racial/ethnic COVID-19 inequities(link is external and opens in a new window) | Rachel L. Berkowitz, Xing Gao, Eli K. Michaels & Mahasin S. Mujahid | Cities & Health

July 29, 2020 | Hateful incidents against Americans of color surge amid pandemic(link is external and opens in a new window) | Kenya Evelyn | The Guardian

July 28, 2020 | Comparison of Weighted and Unweighted Population Data to Assess Inequities in Coronavirus Disease 2019 Deaths by Race/Ethnicity Reported by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(link is external and opens in a new window) | Tori L. Cowger, Brigette A. Davis, Onisha S. Etkins, et al. | JAMA

July 21, 2020 | Tracing the Invisible Danger of Household Crowding(link is external and opens in a new window) | Laura Bliss & Lorena Rios | Bloomberg CityLab

July 14, 2020 | Socially Relevant Variables In US State COVID-19 Surveillance Reporting: A Report Card(link is external and opens in a new window) | Marion Boulicault, Ann Caroline Danielsen, Joseph Bruch, Amelia Tarrant, Alexander Borsa, and Sarah Richardson | Health Affairs Blog

July 13, 2020 | CDC Employees Call Out Agency's 'Toxic Culture Of Racial Aggressions'(link is external and opens in a new window) | Selenta Simmons-Duffin & Pien Huang | National Public Radio

July 11, 2020 | Covid-19 has revealed a pre-existing pandemic of poverty that benefits the rich(link is external and opens in a new window) | Philip Alston | The Guardian

July 9, 2020 | The Latino Community in the Time of Coronavirus: The Case for a Broad and Inclusive Government Response(link is external and opens in a new window) | Unidos US

July 8, 2020 | Study of 17 Million Identifies Crucial Risk Factors for Coronavirus Deaths(link is external and opens in a new window) | Katherine J. Wu | The New York Times

July 8, 2020 | OpenSAFELY: factors associated with COVID-19 death in 17 million patients(link is external and opens in a new window) | Elizabeth J. Williamson et al. | Nature

July 5, 2020 | The Fullest Look Yet at the Racial Inequity of Coronavirus | Richard A. Oppel Jr., Robert Gebeloff, K.K. Rebecca Lai, Will Wright and Mitch Smith(link is external and opens in a new window) | The New York Times

July 3, 2020 | 'Historic health screw-up': what you need to know about the Covid-19 crisis in California prisons(link is external and opens in a new window) | Abené Clayton | The Guardian

July 2, 2020 | On Racism: A New Standard For Publishing On Racial Health Inequities(link is external and opens in a new window) | Rhea W. Boyd, Edwin G. Lindo, Lachelle D. Weeks, and Monica R. McLemore | Health Affairs Blog

June 26, 2020 | COVID-19 And America’s Racial Violence Are Inextricable(link is external and opens in a new window) | Sandra Soo-Jin Lee, Michael Bentz and Emily Vasquez | Health Affairs Blog

June 26, 2020 | Many Latinos Couldn’t Stay Home. Now Virus Cases Are Soaring in the Community.(link is external and opens in a new window) | Shawn Hubler, Thomas Fuller, Anjali Singhvi and Juliette Love | The New York Times

June 24, 2020 | The Coronavirus Crisis Inside Prisons Won’t Stay Behind Bars(link is external and opens in a new window) | New York Times

June 20, 2020 | Seizing the Moment: Policy Advocacy to End Mass Incarceration in the Time of COVID-19(link is external and opens in a new window) | Meredith Minkler, Joseph Griffin, and Patricia Wakimoto | Health, Education & Behavior

June 19, 2020 | Imagining Rural Immunity(link is external and opens in a new window) | Thurka Sangaramoorthy and Adia Benton | Anthropology News

June 19, 2020 | Rising coronavirus cases among Latinos alarm public health experts(link is external and opens in a new window) | Laura Barrón-López | Politico

June 18, 2020 | The Nativist Fault Line and Precariousness of Race in the Time of Coronavirus (Asia and Asian America)(link is external and opens in a new window) | Jennifer Lee and Monica Yadav |  ASA Footnotes

June 18, 2020 | Pervasive Ageism in the Response to the Pandemic(link is external and opens in a new window) | Toni Calasanti | ASA Footnotes

June 18, 2020 | Disability as an Axis of Inequality: A Pandemic Illustration(link is external and opens in a new window) | Laura Mauldin et al. | ASA Footnotes

June 16, 2020 | Race gaps in COVID-19 deaths are even bigger than they appear(link is external and opens in a new window) | Tiffany Ford, Sarah Reber, and Richard V. Reeves | Brookings

June 15, 2020 | Coronavirus Cases Rise Sharply in Prisons Even as They Plateau Nationwide(link is external and opens in a new window) | Timothy Williams, Libby Seline and Rebecca Griesbach | The New York Times

June 13, 2020 | The COVID-19 pandemic and health inequalities(link is external and opens in a new window) | Clare Bambra, Ryan Riordan, John Ford, & Fiona Matthews | Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health

June 13, 2020 | Assessing capacity to social distance and neighborhood-level health disparities during the COVID-19 pandemic(link is external and opens in a new window) | Daniel Carrion, Elena Colicino, Nicolo Foppa Pedretti, Johnathan Rush, Kodi B. Arfer, Nicholas DeFelice, and Allan C. Just | medRxiv

June 12, 2020 | Why Racism, Not Race, Is a Risk Factor for Dying of COVID-19(link is external and opens in a new window) | Camara Phyllis Jones (Interview with Claudia Willis) | Scientific American

June 12, 2020 | Why Racism, Not Race, Is a Risk Factor for Dying of COVID-19(link is external and opens in a new window) | Claudia Wallis, in conversation with Camara Phyllis Jones | Scientific American

June 12, 2020 | The unequal toll of COVID-19 mortality by age in the United States: Quantifying racial/ethnic disparities(link is external and opens in a new window) | Mary Baseet, Jarvis Chen, and Nancy Krieger | Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies Working Paper Series

June 12, 2020 | Covid-19 and police abuses have exposed an ugly truth about America: Racism kills(link is external and opens in a new window) | Robert Fullilove | The Guardian

June 11, 2020 | American Indian tribes thwarted in efforts to get coronavirus data(link is external and opens in a new window) | Darius Tahir and Adam Cancryn | Politico

June 10, 2020 | We’re Not All in This Together: On COVID-19, Intersectionality, and Structural Inequality(link is external and opens in a new window) | Lisa Bowleg | American Journal of Public Health

June 9, 2020 | 'Enormous disparities': coronavirus death rates expose Brazil's deep racial inequalities (link is external and opens in a new window)| Dom Phillips | The Guardian

June 7, 2020 | Racism, Not Genetics, Explains Why Black Americans Are Dying of COVID-19(link is external and opens in a new window) | Clarence Gravlee | Scientific American

May 28, 2020 | Racism and the Political Economy of COVID-19: Will We Continue to Resurrect the Past?(link is external and opens in a new window) |  Zinzi D. Bailey and J. Robin Moon | Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law

May 26, 2019 | Work-based Risks to Latino Workers and their Families From COVID-19(link is external and opens in a new window) | Lisa A. Gennetian and Matthew S. Johnson | EcoFact

May 25, 2020 | It's Not Obesity. It's Slavery.(link is external and opens in a new window) |  Sabrina Strings | The New York Times

May 20, 2020 | COVID-19 and Health Equity – A New Kind of “Herd Immunity”(link is external and opens in a new window) | David R. Williams and Lisa A. Cooper | JAMA

May 19, 2020 | How environmental racism is fuelling the coronavirus pandemic(link is external and opens in a new window) | Harriet A. Washington | Nature

May 7, 2020 | Coronavirus Killing Black Britons at Twice the Rate of Whites(link is external and opens in a new window) | Benjamin Mueller | The New York Times

May 6, 2020 | Racial Health Disparities and Covid-19 — Caution and Context(link is external and opens in a new window) | Merlin Chowkwanyun and Adolph L. Reed, Jr. | New England Journal of Medicine

May 5, 2020 | ‘We Are Not Essential. We Are Sacrificial.’ (link is external and opens in a new window)| Sujatha Gidla | The New York Times

May 5, 2020 | The Cost of Medical Marginalization: Undocumented Mothers and Health Access in the Time of COVID-19(link is external and opens in a new window) | Elizabeth Farfán-Santos | Latino Rebels

May 4, 2020 | COVID-19 is a Perfect Storm of Hardship for US Immigrant Communities(link is external and opens in a new window) | Amanda M. Gutierrez, Jacob Hofstetter, and Mary Majumder | Bill of Health

April 29, 2020 | 'A Terrible Price': The Deadly Racial Disparities of Covid-19 in America(link is external and opens in a new window) | Linda Villarosa | The New York Times

April 26, 2020 | Racial Capitalism: A Fundamental Cause of Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic Inequities in the United States(link is external and opens in a new window) | Whitney N. Laster Pirtle | Health Education & Behavior

April 16, 2020 | The Black Plague(link is external and opens in a new window) | Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor | The New Yorker

April 14, 2020 | Stop Blaming Black People for Dying of the Coronavirus(link is external and opens in a new window) | Ibram X. Kendi | The Atlantic

April 10, 2020 | A tale of two New Yorks: pandemic lays bare a city's shocking inequities(link is external and opens in a new window) | Ed Pilkington and Ankita Rao | The Guardian

April 6, 2020 | What the Racial Data Show(link is external and opens in a new window) | Ibram X. Kendi | The Atlantic

April 3, 2020 | Location Data Says It All: Staying at Home During Coronavirus Is a Luxury(link is external and opens in a new window) | Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, Denise Lu and Gabriel J.X. Dance | The New York Times

April 2, 2020 | Confronting Disability Discrimination During the Pandemic(link is external and opens in a new window) | Katie Savin and Laura Guidry-Grimes | The Hastings Center Bioethics Forum

April 1, 2020 | Why Don't We Know Who the Coronavirus Victims Are?(link is external and opens in a new window) | Ibram X. Kendi | The Atlantic

April 1, 2020 | The Racial Time Bomb in the Covid-19 Crisis(link is external and opens in a new window) | Charles M. Blow | The New York Times

March 26, 2020 | Disasters and capitalism…and COVID-19(link is external and opens in a new window) | Vincanne Adams | Somatosphere

March 23, 2020 | ‘I Will Not Apologize for My Needs’  Even in a crisis, doctors should not abandon the principle of nondiscrimination(link is external and opens in a new window) | Ari Ne'eman | The New York Times

March 23, 2020 | Spit On, Yelled At, Attacked: Chinese-Americans Fear for Their Safety(link is external and opens in a new window) | Sabrina Tavernise and Richard A. Oppel Jr. | The New York Times

March 16, 2020 | As Coronavirus Deepens Inequality, Inequality Worsens Its Spread(link is external and opens in a new window) | Max Fisher and Emma Bubola | The New York Times

March 15, 2020 | The Workers Who Face the Greatest Coronavirus Risk(link is external and opens in a new window) | Lazaro Gamio | The New York Times

March 9, 2020 | In Coronavirus Fight, China’s Vulnerable Fall Through the Cracks(link is external and opens in a new window) | Li Yuan | The New York Times

March 9, 2020 | The Poor and Marginalized Will Be the Hardest Hit by Coronavirus(link is external and opens in a new window) | Sandro Galea | Scientific American

February 28, 2020 | Web Roundup: What Can the Coronavirus Outbreak Tell Us About Capitalism, White Supremacy, and Climate Change? | Anika Jugovic-Spajic(link is external and opens in a new window) | Somatosphere

February 7, 2020 | "Wuhan coronavirus" and the racist art of naming a virus(link is external and opens in a new window) | Marie Myung-Ok Lee | Salon

February 4, 2020 | Race, epidemics, and the viral economy of health expertise(link is external and opens in a new window) | Adia Benton | The New Humanitarian

Selected Pre-COVID-19 Resources

2020 | Diagnosing bias in data-driven algorithms for healthcare (link is external and opens in a new window)| Jenna Wiens and W. Nicholson Price II | The Petrie-Flom Center for Health law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School

2016 | Is Racism a Public Health Issue?(link is external and opens in a new window) |  Chandra L. Ford, Derek M. Griffith, Marino A. Bruce, and Keon L. Gilbert | Racism: Science & Tools for the Public Health Professional | APHA Press

2016 | Big Data Neglects Populations Most in Need of Medical and Public Health Research and Interventions(link is external and opens in a new window) | Sarah E. Malanga, Jonathan D. Loe, Christopher T. Robertson, and Kenneth S. Ramos | The Petrie-Flom Center for Health law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School

2013 | Body and Soul The Black Panther Party and the Fight against Medical Discrimination(link is external and opens in a new window) | Alondra Nelson | University of Minnesota Press

2010 | “There Wasn't a Lot of Comforts in Those Days:” African Americans, Public Health, and the 1918 Influenza Epidemic | Vanessa Northington Gamble | Public Health Reports

2008 | Medical Apartheid The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present(link is external and opens in a new window) | Harriet A. Washington | Penguin Radom House

2002 | The Foreignness of Germs: The Persistent Association of Immigrants and Disease in American Society(link is external and opens in a new window) | Howard Markel and Alexandra Minna Stern | The Milbank Quarterly

1992 | AIDS and Accusation Haiti and the Geography of Blame(link is external and opens in a new window) | Paul Farmer | The University of California Press