Explaining the ethnic gaps in COVID-19 outcomes in Mexico

A. Salas-Ortiz

Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers from HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York

Abstract: Indigenous groups are one of the most socially vulnerable groups across societies. Concerns have been raised about the possibility of greater health disparities when the Covid-19 pandemic interacts with non-communicable diseases in contexts of high socioeconomic inequalities (Horton, 2020). Using national and administrative public data on Covid-19, this study investigates this hypothesis by explaining differences in Covid-19 health outcomes (hospitalisations, admissions to intensive care unit, and mortality) between indigenous and non-indigenous groups in Mexico. The analysis uses an adaptation of the Oaxaca decomposition method to account for nonlinear responses. This allows to identify and characterise the factors behind ethnic disparities. Results indicate that indigenous people have worse Covid-19 health outcomes. These differences are mainly attributable to differences in people’s characteristics. Disentangling the contribution of each individual and contextual circumstances to the observable differences, we found that underlying health conditions, household and municipal socioeconomic characteristics are the main drivers of observable inequalities in hospitalisations and deaths due to Covid-19. These findings highlight that this pandemic is exacerbating the pre-existing and longstanding health inequalities between indigenous and non-indigenous people in Mexico.

Keywords: health inequalities; Covid-19; Oaxaca decomposition; indigenous groups; Mexico (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-11
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:yor:hectdg:21/20

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