Report Publish Date: March 8, 2022
This journal article documents concerning gaps in states’ and the Indian Health Service’s reporting of data regarding American Indians and Alaska Natives and COVID-19.
The authors found that nearly two-thirds of states and the District of Columbia (64%) did not report at least one COVID-19 metric (cases, hospitalizations, deaths, or vaccinations) for American Indians and Alaska Natives. Most states (96%) reported COVID-19 vaccination data by race and ethnicity, but fewer than three-quarters (72%) included American Indians and Alaska Natives separately. Among the states that reported no COVID-19 data for American Indians and Alaska Natives were Texas and New York, which are among the states with the largest Indigenous populations.
Knowing how COVID-19 affected particular populations was important for getting resources to the people most affected and crafting policies and programs to protect them. However, many federal and state data sources failed to include specific, disaggregated data about American Indians and Alaska Natives in public health reports before and during the pandemic. The authors wanted to see what data about American Indians and Alaska Natives and COVID-19 was missing from state reports and dashboards.
The authors used the COVID-19 U.S. State Policy, or CUSP, database to document state reporting of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, deaths, and vaccination by race and ethnicity and whether states included American Indians and Alaska natives as a distinct category.
“[T]he COVID-19 pandemic illuminates systemic underreporting and misclassification by race of American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) people in vital records.”
—Alexandra Skinner, Julia Raifman, Elizabeth Ferrara, and Will Raderman, Boston University; and Talia M. Quandelacy, Colorado School of Public Health
“As the COVID-19 pandemic lays bare historical and modern-day policies that have shaped a highly inequitable world, standardization of [American Indian/Alaska Native] data for all health and economic indicators can inform a more equitable future,” the authors write.
Introduction: Complete COVID-19 data for American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) populations are critical to equitable pandemic response.
Methods: We used the COVID-19 U.S. State Policy database to document gaps in COVID-19 data reporting for AI/AN people.
Results: Sixty-four percent of states do not report AI/AN data for at least one COVID-19 health metric: cases, hospitalizations, deaths, or vaccinations.
Discussion: The lack of AI/AN-specific data masks the disproportionate burden of COVID-19 and presents challenges to COVID-19 prevention, policy implementation, and health equity.
Conclusions: Public-facing data disaggregated by race may facilitate rapid response COVID-19 research and policymaking to support AI/AN communities.
Health Equity, March 8, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1089/heq.2021.012
FIG. 1. States reporting race-specific COVID-19 health metrics.
This study and report was conducted and created by the following people.
