African Americans and COVID-19: Beliefs, behaviors and vulnerability to infection

ABSTRACT

In the United States, during the early outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, African Americans experienced disproportionately high rates of infection and mortality relative to their share of the United States population. New Orleans, Louisiana was one of the places most heavily affected by the coronavirus during its early outbreak. The study that follows explores the attitudes of African Americans in New Orleans toward the virus, social and normative conditions which affected individual behaviors, as well as access to healthcare services and COVID-19 testing. In part one of the study, qualitative responses were collected from a sample of African Americans in the New Orleans area to garner perspective about their attitudes and behaviors related to the coronavirus outbreak. Part two of the study builds on findings from Study 1 with parameter estimates from a Logit regression to examine how social, economic and physical conditions determine vulnerability to COVID-19 infection among African Americans. Implications for how healthcare organizations can address the needs of vulnerable populations during a health-related crisis are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Health equity
• Social determinants of health
• African Americans
• COVID-19
• Theory of planned behavior‌

Disclosure statement

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

Notes on contributors

Elyria Kemp, PhD is Associate Professor of Marketing in the College of Business Administration at the University of New Orleans. She holds the Edward G. Schlieder Chair in Higher Education and Health Initiatives and the Bank One Endowed Professorship in Minority & Emerging Business

Gregory N. Price, PhD is Professor of Economics in the College of Business Administration and the Urban Entrepreneurship & Policy Institute at the University of New Orleans

Nicole R. Fuller, PhD is Assistant Professor of Management in the College of Business Administration at University of New Orleans

Edna Faye Kemp, DDS is a practicing dentist at Kemp Dentistry and in the public healthcare sector in Indianapolis, Indiana