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Adults of color, noncitizens, and adults with lower educational attainment and incomes are disproportionately employed in occupations with increased climate-related health risks. Moreover, workers in occupations with increased climate-related health risks are more likely to be uninsured, contributing to challenges accessing health care.
Rapidly rising rates of deaths by suicide and drug overdose among people of color, along with disproportionate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, further underscore inequities in access to mental health care and treatment and highlight the importance of centering equity in diagnostics, care, and treatment.
Data show that children’s vaccination rates, including MMR and seasonal flu vaccines, have declined in recent years largely due to decreases in vaccinations among White and Asian children. At the same time, and despite the declines among White and Asian children, Black and AIAN children remain least likely to have received recommended childhood vaccinations and the MMR vaccine specifically.
Over the course of the pandemic, racial disparities in cases and deaths have widened and narrowed. However, overall, Black, Hispanic, and American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) people have borne the heaviest health impacts of the pandemic. While Black and Hispanic people were less likely than their White counterparts to receive a vaccine during the initial phases of the vaccination rollout, these disparities have narrowed over time and reversed for Hispanic people.
This analysis examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic by race and ethnicity through the lens of premature mortality, using the measures of premature mortality rate and years of life lost among excess deaths that occurred during the pandemic.
There were gains in coverage across most racial and ethnic groups between 2019 and 2023 after several years of rising uninsured rates during the first Trump administration. The coverage gains between 2019 and 2023 were largely driven by increases in Medicaid coverage, reflecting policies to stabilize and expand access to affordable coverage that were implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This analysis examines how people of color fare compared to White people across 64 measures of health, health care, and social determinants of health using the most recent data available from federal surveys and administrative sets as well as the 2023 KFF Survey on Racism, Discrimination, and Health.
There was an increase in life expectancy between 2021 and 2023 across all racial and ethnic groups. American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) people experienced the largest increase in life expectancy of 4.5 years during this time, followed by Hispanic (3.5 years) and Black people (2.8 years).
The uninsured rate has fallen among all racial and ethnic groups under the Affordable Care Act with steeper declines among people of color compared to Whites, according to a new analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The findings for Hispanics were especially striking.
Over the course of the pandemic, racial disparities in cases and deaths have widened and narrowed. However, overall, Black, Hispanic, and American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) people have borne the heaviest health impacts of the pandemic. While Black and Hispanic people were less likely than their White counterparts to receive a vaccine during the initial phases of the vaccination rollout, these disparities have narrowed over time and reversed for Hispanic people.
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