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. 2020 Aug;47(4):509-513.
doi: 10.1177/1090198120929677. Epub 2020 May 21.

Social Vulnerability and Racial Inequality in COVID-19 Deaths in Chicago

Sage J Kim  1 , Wendy Bostwick  2
Affiliations

Social Vulnerability and Racial Inequality in COVID-19 Deaths in Chicago

Sage J Kim et al. Health Educ Behav. 2020 Aug.

Abstract

Although the current COVID-19 crisis is felt globally, at the local level, COVID-19 has disproportionately affected poor, highly segregated African American communities in Chicago. To understand the emerging pattern of racial inequality in the effects of COVID-19, we examined the relative burden of social vulnerability and health risk factors. We found significant spatial clusters of social vulnerability and risk factors, both of which are significantly associated with the increased COVID-19-related death rate. We also found that a higher percentage of African Americans was associated with increased levels of social vulnerability and risk factors. In addition, the proportion of African American residents has an independent effect on the COVID-19 death rate. We argue that existing inequity is often highlighted in emergency conditions. The disproportionate effects of COVID-19 in African American communities are a reflection of racial inequality and social exclusion that existed before the COVID-19 crisis.

Keywords: African American; GIS; emergency; general terms; health disparities; health equity; neighborhood; place; population groups; risk and crisis communication.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
The distributions of COVID-19-related deaths by race and percentage of African Americans in 77 Chicago Community Areas (N = 269).
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
The spatial distributions of social vulnerability, health risk factors, and the percentage of African American residents in Chicago Community Areas. Note. Social vulnerability index ranged from −2.0640 to 2.4859; Risk Score ranged from −2.1266 to 1.8715.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Local spatial autocorrelation between social vulnerability and health risk factor score; and the percentage of African American residents and the rate of COVID-19-related deaths in Chicago Community Areas.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Structural equation model results: Unstandardized regression coefficients for the correlation between the percentage of African Americans, social vulnerability, health risk factors, and the COVID-19 death rate. Note. SVI = social vulnerability index. *p < .05. **p < .01.
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