MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Researchers at the University of Minnesota say they found “significant differences” in COVID-19 hospitals when comparing racial and ethnic groups in states that track hospital data.
Researchers from the Carlson School of Management recently followed 12 states – including Minnesota – over a two-month period, and monitored nearly 49,000 hospitalizations. They found that in most of the states Black and Hispanic populations were hospitalized for the new coronavirus at rates higher than their white counterparts and disproportionate to their share of the population.
The situation was reversed for Asian Americans, who were hospitalized as rates below their relative size in the population.
According to the study, which was published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, all states analyzed had Black populations with disproportionate COVID-19 hospitalizations. All one state had Hispanic populations with disproportionate hospitalizations.
As far as Minnesota is concerned, specifically, Blacks produced nearly 25% of the COVID-19 hospitalizations during the study period, while they were only about 7% of the state’s population. However, the researchers note that the analysis does not adjust for age, gender, comorbidities or socioeconomic factors.
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In addition to Minnesota, the 12 states that monitor the diversity of racial and ethnic groups are Arizona, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Virginia, and Washington.
The researchers say their study highlights the need for all states to report and track this data to better understand why the pandemic is disproportionately affecting different communities and thus come up with possible solutions.
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