The disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on black and African American communities in the St. Louis region

The novel coronavirus has had a widely varied impact on different communities in the St. Louis region. This analysis cannot fully explain the causal pathway of observed disparities in COVID-19 for communities of color in the St. Louis region. Namely, the data do not account for differences in other community risk factors such as socioeconomic status, population density, household composition, labor force composition, including the proportion of essential workers, the related ability of individuals in different areas to shelter at home versus continuing to work, presence of comorbid conditions or prevalence of testing. In truth, race is linked with many of these factors, and a deeper exploration of these relationships using patient-level data is needed to disentangle the myriad potential contributors to these findings and to help inform policy and public health solutions. As such, a mixed methods approach using a race-conscious lens and systems-oriented framework is needed to provide contextually nuanced insights on the drivers of disparities to inform thoughtful mitigation strategies among institutional leaders and policymakers.