Studies Are Showing Black Women Died At A Much Higher Rate Than Black Men Of Covid19

Black women died from COVID-19 at much higher rates than white men in Georgia and Michigan, per a new study.

Harvard researchers looked at data in COVID-19 death rates in the two states through September 2020 and found that Black women died at 3.8 times the rate of white men in Michigan and 1.6 times the rate of white men in Georgia.

While other studies had previously found that men overall are dying of COVID-19 at higher rates than women, and Black people are dying at higher rates than whites, this study looked at how both race and gender intersect to create further disparities.

The study’s findings were “consistent with what we would expect, although it’s always devastating to see such results and unfortunate that this is what we expect,” said study co-author Tamara Rushovich.

“Black women sit at the intersection of both gender and race oppression,” the Ph.D. student at Harvard’s school of public health added. “So it wasn’t surprising to see these high rates among Black women become more visible.” 

The study relied on only two states, as other states did not at the time have complete data for COVID-19 deaths disaggregated by race, gender and age.

Neither Michigan nor Georgia had data for coronavirus deaths broken out by ethnicity, so the study could not include findings around Latinx people, who as a group nationwide — like Black people — are being hospitalized at three times the rate of whites and dying twice as much.