Citizenship Matters: Non-Citizen COVID-19 Mortality Disparities in New York and Los Angeles

Jason A. Douglas, Georgiana Bostean, Angel Miles Nash, Emmanuel B. John, Lawrence M. Brown and Andrew M. Subica
Additional contact information
Jason A. Douglas: Department of Health Sciences, Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences, Chapman University, Orange, CA 92866, USA
Georgiana Bostean: Sociology and Environmental Science & Policy Programs, Schmid & Wilkinson Colleges, Chapman University, Orange, CA 92866, USA
Angel Miles Nash: Donna Ford Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, Orange, CA 92866, USA
Emmanuel B. John: Department of Physical Therapy, Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences, Chapman University, Irvine, CA 92618, USA
Lawrence M. Brown: School of Pharmacy, Chapman University, Irvine, CA 92618, USA
Andrew M. Subica: Department of Social Medicine, Population & Public Health, Riverside School of Medicine, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521, USA

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 9, 1-12

Abstract: U.S. non-citizen residents are burdened by inequitable access to socioeconomic resources, potentially placing them at heightened risk of COVID-19-related disparities. However, COVID-19 impacts on non-citizens are not well understood. Accordingly, the current study investigated COVID-19 mortality disparities within New York (NYC) and Los Angeles (LAC) to test our hypothesis that areas with large proportions of non-citizens will have disproportionately high COVID-19 mortality rates. We examined ecological associations between March 2020–January 2021 COVID-19 mortality rates (per 100,000 residents) and percent non-citizens (using ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTA) for NYC and City/Community units of analysis for LAC) while controlling for sociodemographic factors. Multiple linear regression analyses revealed significant positive associations between the percentage of non-citizen residents and COVID-19 mortality rates in NYC (95% CI 0.309, 5.181) and LAC (95% CI 0.498, 8.720). Despite NYC and LAC policies intended to provide sanctuary and improve healthcare access for non-citizen residents, communities with larger proportions of non-citizens appear to endure higher COVID-19 mortality rates. The challenges that non-citizens endure—e.g., inequitable access to public benefits—may discourage help-seeking behaviors. Thus, improved health surveillance, public health messaging, and sanctuary policies will be essential for reducing COVID-19 mortality disparities in communities with large shares of non-citizens.

Keywords: COVID-19; non-citizens; Black and Latinx; health disparities; systemic racism; social determinants of health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/9/5066/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/9/5066/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:9:p:5066-:d:799003

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().