IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/dem/demres/v44y2021i29.html

Using race- and age-specific COVID-19 case data to investigate the determinants of the excess COVID-19 mortality burden among Hispanic Americans

Author

Listed:
  • D. Phuong (Phoenix) Do

    (University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee)

  • Reanne Frank

    (Ohio State University)

Abstract

Background: Age-adjusted COVID-19 mortality estimates have exposed a previously hidden excess mortality burden for the US Hispanic population. Multiple explanations have been put forth, including unequal quality/access to health care, higher proportion of pre-existing health conditions, multigenerational household composition, and disproportionate representation in telecommute-unfriendly occupations. However, these hypotheses have been rarely tested. Objective: We examine age-stratified patterns of Hispanic COVID-19 mortality vis-à-vis patterns of exposure to evaluate the multiple posited hypotheses. Methods: We use a combination of public and restricted data from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention and leverage national and subnational race- and age-stratified COVID-19 mortality and case burdens/advantages to evaluate the workplace vulnerability hypothesis. We also use individual-level information on prior health conditions and mortality from the case data to assess whether observed patterns are consistent with the other hypotheses. Results: Our results indicate that the disproportionate burdens for both COVID-19 case and mortality for the Hispanic population are largest among the working-age groups, supporting the hypothesis that workplace exposure plays a critical role in heightening vulnerability to COVID-19 mortality. We find little evidence to support the hypotheses regarding multigenerational household composition, pre-existing health conditions, or unequal quality/access to health care. Conclusions: Our findings point to the key roles played by age structure and differential exposure in contributing to the disproportionately severe impact of COVID-19 on the Hispanic population. Contribution: We contribute evidence to explain the driving factors in the observed excess COVID-19 mortality burden among Hispanics. Our findings underscore the importance of focusing on more robust workplace protections, particularly for working-age minority populations.

Suggested Citation

  • D. Phuong (Phoenix) Do & Reanne Frank, 2021. "Using race- and age-specific COVID-19 case data to investigate the determinants of the excess COVID-19 mortality burden among Hispanic Americans," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 44(29), pages 699-718.
    • Handle: RePEc:dem:demres:v:44:y:2021:i:29
    DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2021.44.29
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol44/29/44-29.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.4054/DemRes.2021.44.29?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jennifer Beam Dowd & Liliana Andriano & David M. Brazel & Valentina Rotondi & Per Block & Xuejie Ding & Yan Liu & Melinda C. Mills, 2020. "Demographic science aids in understanding the spread and fatality rates of COVID-19," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 117(18), pages 9696-9698, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Elizabeth Arias & Betzaida Tejada-Vera, 2023. "Differential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on excess mortality and life expectancy loss within the Hispanic population," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 48(12), pages 339-352.
    2. Lilia R. Lukowsky & Claudia Der-Martirosian & Aram Dobalian, 2022. "Disparities in Excess, All-Cause Mortality among Black, Hispanic, and White Veterans at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs during the COVID-19 Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(4), pages 1-8, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jorge Paz, 2020. "Notas sobre la demografía del COVID-19 en Argentina," Working Papers 22, Instituto de Estudios Laborales y del Desarrollo Económico (IELDE) - Universidad Nacional de Salta - Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Jurídicas y Sociales.
    2. Laliotis, Ioannis & Minos, Dimitrios, 2022. "Religion, social interactions, and COVID-19 incidence in Western Germany," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    3. Nepomuceno, Marília, 2020. "Vulnerable groups at increased risk of COVID-19 in sub-Saharan Africa: The case of the HIV population," OSF Preprints uyzjv, Center for Open Science.
    4. repec:osf:osfxxx:uyzjv_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Sánchez-Romero, Miguel & Di Lego, Vanessa & Fürnkranz-Prskawetz, Alexia & Queiroz, Bernardo Lanza, 2020. "How many lives can be saved? A global view on the impact of testing, herd immunity and demographics on COVID-19 fatality rates," ECON WPS - Working Papers in Economic Theory and Policy 05/2020, TU Wien, Institute of Statistics and Mathematical Methods in Economics, Economics Research Unit.
    6. Naudé, Wim & Cameron, Martin, 2020. "Failing to Pull Together: South Africa's Troubled Response to COVID-19," IZA Discussion Papers 13649, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Ma, Mac Zewei & Chen, Sylvia Xiaohua & Wang, Xijing, 2024. "Collective pronouns, collective health actions: Predicting pandemic precautionary measures through online first-person plural pronoun usage across U.S. states," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 357(C).
    8. Hensel, Lukas & Witte, Marc & Caria, A. Stefano & Fetzer, Thiemo & Fiorin, Stefano & Götz, Friedrich M. & Gomez, Margarita & Haushofer, Johannes & Ivchenko, Andriy & Kraft-Todd, Gordon & Reutskaja, El, 2022. "Global Behaviors, Perceptions, and the Emergence of Social Norms at the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 473-496.
    9. Aydogan, Yigit, 2020. "Are Covid-19 Cases Independent of the City Sizes?," MPRA Paper 99697, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Anthony Medford & Sergi Trias-Llimós, 2020. "Population age structure only partially explains the large number of COVID-19 deaths at the oldest ages," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 43(19), pages 533-544.
    11. repec:osf:socarx:84ygx_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Chenghe Guan & Junjie Tan & Brian Hall & Chao Liu & Ying Li & Zhichang Cai, 2022. "The Effect of the Built Environment on the COVID-19 Pandemic at the Initial Stage: A County-Level Study of the USA," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-17, March.
    13. Hakan Yilmazkuday, 2020. "COVID‐19 and unequal social distancing across demographic groups," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(6), pages 1235-1248, December.
    14. Gerritse, Michiel, 2022. "COVID-19 transmission in cities," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    15. Jethro Banda & Georges Reniers & Stéphane Helleringer & Abena Amoah & Albert Dube & Sarah Brumfield & Amelia Crampin, 2021. "Knowledge, risk perceptions, and behaviors related to the COVID-19 pandemic in Malawi," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 44(20), pages 459-480.
    16. Swapnarekha, H. & Behera, Himansu Sekhar & Nayak, Janmenjoy & Naik, Bighnaraj, 2020. "Role of intelligent computing in COVID-19 prognosis: A state-of-the-art review," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    17. Giorgi, Julien & Boertien, Diederik, 2020. "The potential impact of co-residence structures on socio-demographic inequalities in COVID-19 mortality," SocArXiv 84ygx, Center for Open Science.
    18. Ghasemi, Abdolrasoul & Boroumand, Yasaman & Shirazi, Masoud, 2020. "How do governments perform in facing COVID-19?," MPRA Paper 99791, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 20 Apr 2020.
    19. Doran, Áine & Colvin, Christopher L. & McLaughlin, Eoin, 2024. "What can we learn from historical pandemics? A systematic review of the literature," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 342(C).
    20. Ugofilippo Basellini & Carlo Giovanni Camarda, 2020. "Modelling COVID-19 mortality at the regional level in Italy," Working Papers axq0sudakgkzhr-blecv, French Institute for Demographic Studies.
    21. Imdad, Kashif & Sahana, Mehebub & Rana, Md Juel & Haque, Ismail & Patel, Priyank Pravin & Pramanik, Malay, 2020. "The COVID-19 pandemic's footprint in India: An assessment on the district-level susceptibility and vulnerability," MPRA Paper 100727, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    22. Damiano Uccheddu & Ester Lucia Rizzi & Jessica Kelley, 2023. "Intergenerational Ties and COVID-19 Contagion: A Study on European Adults Aged 50 Years and Older Using SHARE Data," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 78(4), pages 749-763.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:dem:demres:v:44:y:2021:i:29. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Editorial Office (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.demogr.mpg.de/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.