Racial Inequities in the Vaccine Rollout
Communities of color have been failed by limited access and poor communication
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Another day, another headline about Covid-19 racial health disparities. This time, it’s the all too predictable inequities in the rollout of the vaccines.
In virtually every state with reported vaccination rates broken down by race, Black Americans have received significantly fewer doses than White Americans. According to Kaiser Health News, Pennsylvania is the worst off, with a fourfold difference in vaccination rates between the two races (0.6% of Black residents versus 2.6% of White residents). Most other states hover around a two- to threefold difference in vaccination rates by race. Mississippi has the largest gap between the percentage of the state’s Black population (38%) and the percentage of vaccinated residents who are Black (15%).
There are several explanations for these disparities, none of them excusable. Health care workers were the first group to receive the vaccine, and while there are a higher number of White health care workers at the top of the ladder (because Black Americans have historically been held back from reaching the highest rungs), the overall racial breakdown of health care workers maps almost exactly to that of the U.S. population: 60% White and 40% people of color.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation:
In 2019, there were over 18.6 million people working in the health care industry across a range of occupations and settings. Overall, 60% of health care workers were White and 40% were people of color, including 16% who were Black, 13% who were Hispanic, and 7% who were Asian. However, the racial/ethnic composition of health care workers varied across occupations and settings. Black and Hispanic health care workers made up relatively larger shares of aides and personal care workers and direct contact support workers. Black and Hispanic workers also accounted for larger shares of health care workers in home health care, and Black workers made up a relatively larger share of workers in skilled nursing facility or other residential care settings.
In many states, hospitals received the lion’s share of vaccine doses while home health workers were left with little…
