Hispanic and Latino communities suffer disproportionately from COVID-19 in Orange County, researchers find

Hispanic and Latino residents of disadvantaged communities in Orange County are at a higher risk of contracting COVID-19, according to UC Irvine researchers.

The conclusion was made from a recent analysis of 210 UCI Health patients, which found that Hispanic and Latino patients accounted for 47.4% of UCI Health critical COVID-19 cases, despite accounting for 34.2% of the Orange County population.

Dr. Saahir Khan, a researcher on the study and UCI Health infectious disease physician, said the reasons for the heightened risk for the communities are socioeconomic, including living in denser areas, lack of access to healthcare and being frontline workers.

“A lot of them are the higher-density housing areas in Orange County,� Khan said. “Places like Santa Ana, particularly downtown Santa Ana, with a higher density of multi-generational households where people are living in close proximity.�

Khan said many of the patients are also more likely to have jobs in grocery stores or other occupations where they can’t socially distance or work from home.

Researchers believe lower educational attainment could be a potential risk.

“That may have to do with health literacy and the ability to be aware of and conform to guidelines that can protect them,� Khan said.

Khan said researchers analyzed patients who tested positive for COVID-19 at UCI Health for the study and used the chart data that is collected from patients before being tested.

Researchers inferred some of the data based on average household size and average income from the areas that people listed as their residence.

“We weren’t directly asking a person how big is your household or how many people live there,� Khan said.

Khan said the study is ongoing, and researchers will continue to analyze patients that present to the hospital with positive COVID-19 tests with the hopes of making more conclusions about the underlying risk factors of the virus.

Khan said the data could be useful to hospitals that want to be proactive in testing.

“Another thing is it is important for hospitals to be sensitive for health disparities and to try to, to the best extent they can, make care equitable,� Khan said. “So if you come to the hospital ... that we are not treating anybody differently because of their insurance status or where they come from.�

Khan also said governments should be allocating resources to help disadvantaged communities.

“I also think that local government should look at this,� Khan said, “and direct their resources into these communities to do testing, to do contact tracing, and try to do what they can do to alleviate some of the underlying economic stresses and some of the underlying access to care issues that are causing this increase in these communities.�

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