Of four new studies of racial COVID-19 health disparities, all but one suggest that non-white, socioeconomically disadvantaged, and non–English-speaking populations shoulder disproportionate COVID-19 burdens.Black, low-income patientsThe first study, published today in JAMA Network Open, involved 2,595 patients tested for COVID-19 at a Milwaukee hospital from Mar 12 to 31.
Of the 369 patients (59.1%) who tested positive, 218 (59.1%) were black. Black patients were 5.4 times more likely than those of other races to test positive.
Other risk factors included male sex (1.5 times more likely than women to test positive) and being older than 60 years (2.0 times more likely).Patient ZIP code explained 79% of the overall variance in positive