Kansas has largest racial disparity in COVID-19 death rates, study finds

Kansas has the largest racial disparity among the 41 states that report demographic information about those who have died with COVID-19, according to a study by UC Berkeley’s Othering & Belonging Institute.

Nearly a third of the state’s COVID-19 deaths have been black Kansans, although they account for only 5.6% of the state’s population.

The UC Berkeley study does not examine root causes of the disparity but provides comparisons between states through a heat map that shows racial disparities by state.

Texas, New Hampshire and Massachusetts have the lowest racial disparity, meaning their infection rates and death rates closely mirror the demographics of the states.

Alaska, the Dakotas, Hawaii, Maine, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming have not made race demographic information available to the public and are not included in the map.

In Kansas, 30% of people who have died of COVID-19 are black and 63% were white, while Asian and all others accounted for 7% of the state’s death count. COVID-19 black death rates are six times their share of the population while whites are dying below their share of the population, according to the UC Berkeley map.

Also ranking near the bottom in the study — meaning there is a large racial disparity in deaths — are Wisconsin, Michigan and Arkansas.

The alarming statistics surface as a coalition of local black leaders call for more resources and better information about the pandemic’s effects on local communities of color.

Wichita City Council member Brandon Johnson said he suspects the racial disparities in COVID-19 deaths are a product of America’s long and racist history surrounding housing, wealth and health that have not been adequately confronted in Kansas.

“We just continue to say, ‘Everyone’s treated equally,’” Johnson said. “But the reality is we have to focus on certain areas, invest more in certain areas. To equalize takes more investment.”

Johnson is a member of the Black Alliance, a coalition of elected officials, organizations and activists who are demanding a fair share of support for communities of color from local government.

He said the death disparity can be explained by health conditions that are prevalent in the black communities that also make COVID-19 more deadly.

“When a pandemic happens, and you see a virus that really goes after that type of weakness, that’s the ‘Why?’ as far as these disparities,” Johnson said.

Why Kansas ranks so low is fairly obvious, Johnson said, but fixing the problem will likely take a concerted effort to address the issues

“We’ve got to start to address these things rather than just talk about it. And I think that’s where you begin to make an impact. It doesn’t help us right now in a pandemic, but it can start to prepare us for a better future,” Johnson said.

Kansas Rep. Gail Finney, a Wichita Democrat who is also a member of the alliance, said the disparities aren’t shocking to her.

“I’m not really surprised that it’s culminated to this,” she said. “In Wichita and Sedgwick County, even before the pandemic, we were already dealing with the socioeconomic issues of poverty and health issues. We already had our plate full.”

“A lot of us are close-knit with our families and friends, attending church, and some of us live in households with family members of multiple generations,” Finney said. “There’s so many things working against us that we just have to work together.”

Among the top priorities of the Black Alliance is persuading the Sedgwick County Commission, whose five members are all white, to help the minority communities in Wichita that have been hit hardest by the virus.

The commission received $99.6 million in federal funding from the CARES Act to fight against COVID-19, and Black Alliance is calling on the county to use that money to ramp up testing in poorer areas and areas with large minority populations.

“That money shouldn’t be used by hospital corporations to recoup losses caused by COVID-19,” the Black Alliance said in a letter to The Eagle.

Sedgwick County continues to hover near the bottom of the country in testing for the virus and has been reluctant to open its northeast Wichita clinic in a historically black neighborhood for coronavirus testing.

The alliance also is frustrated by the lack of useful local data about COVID-19. Wichita’s hospitals have declined to provide the public — and county officials — with information about hospital use during the pandemic, according to county officials. Sedgwick County is withholding the names of some businesses and churches that have COVID-19 clusters.

It’s unclear how much the Wichita area, which has one of the largest black populations in the state, contributes to the disparities listed in the UC Berkeley study. At least 34 of Wyandotte County’s 66 COVID-19 deaths have been black people, according to its county website.

Sedgwick County has not released demographic information about the 20 people who have died.

“These failures continue to mount our concerns,” the alliance said in an Op-Ed published in The Eagle, “and we demand that the commission provide everyone in our community — symptomatic or not — with free, high-quality, equitable access to rapid testing and treatment options without having to be deathly ill, and without fear of being turned away.”

Besides more free testing, Finney said, the county should work to help address childcare concerns as people return to work. More work should also be done to provide minority-owned businesses with personal protective equipment, or PPE, including N95 masks.

She said a lot of those circumstances the black community is facing are not unique to communities of color, and addressing the coalition’s concerns would help everyone.

A recent investigation by CNBC found that in Kansas, more than half of the workforce could make more money on unemployment than by working, among the largest share of states.

“A lot of us are working low-pay, by-the-hour jobs in the service industry,” Finney said. “A lot of us are working essential jobs that are more exposed to the virus. If we’re going to open things up, we need to feel safe doing that.”

This story was originally published May 13, 2020 at 9:59 AM.