It has long been clear that Black Americans have experienced high rates of coronavirus infection, hospitalization and death throughout the pandemic.
“We expect there are going to be greater barriers to access the resources and services available for long COVID,” said one of the authors, Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, director of Yale University’s health equity office and former chair of President Joe Biden’s health equity task force. The Black Coalition Against COVID, the Yale School of Medicine and the Morehouse School of Medicine were authors of the report, which also offers recommendations to policy leaders.
Black Americans were overrepresented in essential worker positions, which increased the risk of exposure to the virus, the authors write. And they were also more likely than white Americans to live in multigenerational homes or crowded spaces, be incarcerated, or live in densely populated areas.