COVID-19 hitting NH’s Black and Latino communities hard

New Hampshire’s minority residents have made up 26% of the state’s coronavirus cases where race was reported, showing a severely disproportionate impact of the public health crisis on Black and Latino communities.

That’s according to a report released this week by the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute examining inequities among racial and ethnic groups in New Hampshire, and the impact on their opportunities to thrive.

New Hampshire’s population is 3.9% Latino and 1.4% Black, yet minorities have made up 21% of coronavirus-related hospitalizations and 10% of deaths, according to state data released on cases where race is known as of June 23.

“These figures indicate the health impacts of the COVID-19 crisis are falling disproportionately on non-white and Hispanic communities in New Hampshire,” the NHFPI report states.

Per the state Department of Health and Human Services, race was identified for 82.4% of the 5,571 total COVID-19 infections.

According to the COVID-19 Racial Data Tracker – a partnership between the COVID Tracking Project and the Center for Antiracist Research – Black people are dying at a rate more than 1.5 times higher than their population share in the U.S. Four of the top five counties with the highest death rates in the nation are predominantly Black, the data shows.

There are a slew of social determinants that impact these communities’ increased vulnerability to the virus, the report demonstrates – and these are evident in communities of color across the country.

While the poverty rate for non-Hispanic white individuals in New Hampshire during the 2014-2018 time period was 7.2%, Hispanic individuals faced a poverty rate of 17.8% and Black or African-American individuals a rate of 19.8%. Those who were Asian, identifying with two or more races, or born outside the United States also experienced higher poverty rates than the state as a whole, the report stated.

Median income for households with Hispanic or Latino householders was estimated at 74 cents for every dollar for non-Hispanic white households. For Black or African- American householders, income was estimated at 69 cents per every dollar in a non-Hispanic white household’s median income.

“Households headed by Black, African-American, Hispanic, or Latino individuals had median incomes that were about three quarters of the statewide median household income, or approximately $20,000 per year less, which provided less purchasing power within the year and a reduced ability to save over time relative to non-Hispanic white households in the state,” according to the report.

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The demonstrated resource inequities, the report stated, have consequences for health outcomes. Lower incomes and fewer assets typically equate to limited housing options and the options available “in densely developed areas may make distancing more difficult to accomplish.”

Access to medical care can also be challenging for some populations, the report stated, due to a lack of health insurance coverage or transportation to medical facilities.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stated Hispanic and Black or African-American workers are more likely to be employed in the service industry than their white counterparts, indicating more may work jobs deemed essential, placing them at greater risk of encountering the virus at work.

An analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation indicates these individuals of color were less likely to have a usual source of health care – other than the emergency room – than white individuals in 2018.

"These and other factors have resulted in racial and ethnic disparities in incidences of COVID-19 across the country and in New Hampshire that help demonstrate the broad implications of longstanding inequities,“ the report said. ”Black, African American, Hispanic, and Latino residents of New Hampshire face considerably greater resource limitations, on average, and the associated implications complicate their abilities to recover from this crisis.“

The report notes COVID-19-related deaths as of June 23 were approximately proportionate to the population sizes, “which may reflect the median age of the different racial and ethnic groups in the state, as older adults are more likely to be non-Hispanic whites and are more likely to be vulnerable to severe complications from COVID-19.”

Recent data showed Maine as having the worst COVID-19 racial disparity in the country, where Black residents are contracting the virus at 20 times the rate of their white neighbors, according to a report in the Portland Press Herald. Maine had reported 3,294 cases to date as of Wednesday.