Price Quotes from the 2018 American Community Study program 78%of Top County residents are white, 15%are African-American, 4%are Asian and 3%are mixed race or belong to other racial groups.
African-Americans make up about 15%of Summit County’s population, however they are disproportionately contaminated, hospitalized and killed by the COVID-19 coronavirus.
Since Wednesday, Top County has 295 COVID-19 cases, 261 for which the person’s race was reported, according to the health department. Among those cases, 60%are white and 36%are African-American – more than two times the portion of African-Americans in the county.
Of the 112 hospitalized patients for whom their race was reported, 50%are white and 48%are African-American.
Forty-eight percent of Summit County residents hospitalized due to COVID-19 have actually been African-American, while African-Americans only comprise about 15%of the county’s population.
Six of the county’s 16 residents who have actually passed away of the coronavirus, or 38%, were African-American.
In the report, the health department said the analysis is initial, and research will continue based upon additional cases and greater schedule of testing.
” Although there is still much to learn about COVID-19, we can presume that the racial variation that is establishing is less a function of biology and more a function of the social factors of health,” the report states. “The reasons for racial disparities are difficult to define exactly, however there is a strong body of research revealing that racial health variations are strongly influenced by social, cultural, economic and ecological aspects and have little to do with biology or specific habits.”
The health department said African-American citizens in Summit County have rates a minimum of twice that of whites for diabetes deaths, infant death rates, home mortgage rejections, percent with less than a high school diploma, low birthweight babies, child poverty rates and joblessness rates.
In a statement to cleveland.com, Akron Mayor Dan Horrigan stated the information in the report is “distressing and completely unacceptable.
” But, unfortunately, this outcome is not shocking, since we currently know that African-Americans are disproportionately impacted by the social determinants of health– including access to resources, exposure to health risks, frequency of persistent disease, and prejudiced outcomes when accessing health care,” Horrigan said. “These problems, integrated with the truth that bigger portions of African-Americans hold frontline tasks in retail and food service, make them especially vulnerable.”
Horrigan stated he and his health equity ambassador, Tamiyka Rose, have been tracking COVID-19 data and are working with public health authorities, African-American faith leaders and other officials to deal with issues of inequity, specifically for the most vulnerable residents.