Abstract
Introduction: Recent research underscores the exceptionally young age distribution of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. compared with that of international peers. This paper characterizes how high levels of COVID-19 mortality at midlife ages (45–64 years) are deeply intertwined with continuing racial inequity in COVID-19 mortality. Methods: Mortality data from Minnesota in 2020–2022 were analyzed in June 2022. Death certificate data (COVID-19 deaths N=12,771) and published vaccination rates in Minnesota allow vaccination and mortality rates to be observed with greater age and temporal precision than national data. Results: Black, Hispanic, and Asian adults aged <65 years were all more highly vaccinated than White populations of the same ages during most of Minnesota's substantial and sustained Delta surge and all the subsequent Omicron surges. However, White mortality rates were lower than those of all other groups. These disparities were extreme; at midlife ages (ages 45–64 years), during the Omicron period, more highly vaccinated populations had COVID-19 mortality that was 164% (Asian-American), 115% (Hispanic), or 208% (Black) of White COVID-19 mortality at these ages. In Black, Indigenous, and People of Color populations as a whole, COVID-19 mortality at ages 55–64 years was greater than White mortality at 10 years older. Conclusions: This discrepancy between vaccination and mortality patterning by race/ethnicity suggests that if the current period is a pandemic of the unvaccinated, it also remains a pandemic of the disadvantaged in ways that can decouple from vaccination rates. This result implies an urgent need to center health equity in the development of COVID-19 policy measures.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 259-264 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | American journal of preventive medicine |
| Volume | 64 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Feb 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors thank the Minnesota Department of Health and particularly Keeley Morris for sharing data and code that facilitated the analysis and thank Michelle Niemann and Matthew Plummer for their helpful comments. The interpretations, conclusions, and recommendations in this work are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the NIH, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, or the Minnesota Department of Health; no funders played a role in the study design or interpretation of results. Data are available athttps://osf.io/bxjkh/?view_only=80e912ce2b624ab7a78e51754c3952e3. This research was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P2CHD041023, F31HD107980), the National Institute on Aging (P30AG066613, R01AG060115-04S1), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (grant number 77521), and the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. This study was deemed exempt from full review by the University of Minnesota (STUDY00012527). No financial disclosures were reported by the authors of this paper. Elizabeth Wrigley-Field: Conceptualization, Data curation, Methodology, Software, Writing–original draft. Kaitlyn M. Berry: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Visualization, Writing–review and editing. Andrew C. Stokes: Conceptualization, Writing–original draft. Jonathon P. Leider: Conceptualization, Data curation, Writing–review and editing.
Funding Information:
This research was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P2CHD041023, F31HD107980), the National Institute on Aging (P30AG066613, R01AG060115-04S1), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (grant number 77521), and the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 American Journal of Preventive Medicine
PubMed: MeSH publication types
- Journal Article
- Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
- Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
