A Deadly Triple Threat: Three Layers of U.S. Racial Inequity in COVID Infections and Deaths

ABSTRACT

COVID-19 infections and deaths in the United States have affected racial groups differentially. Until now, there has been no analysis of the role that structural racism plays in those health outcomes. We use three models of ascending complexity to quantify the state-level impact of reporting bias, socioeconomic difference, and endogenous policy choices in a treatment model. Even after controlling for confounding factors like Black Lives Matter and other public demonstrations, multivariate regressions conclude that all three explain the phenomenon. We estimate massive avoidable costs of over 870,000 infections and 39,000 deaths due to unequal health outcomes by race.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID
• structural racism
• endogenous treatment
• mortality
• infection

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• I14
• I18
• H12
• J15

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Parker N. Johnson of the University of Chicago for excellent research assistance, and to anonymous reviewers for comments that improved our work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).