UK ethnic minorities more likely to die from COVID-19: think tank

People from some ethnic minorities in Britain are dying in disproportionate numbers from COVID-19, possibly because they are more likely to work in healthcare and other sectors most exposed to the coronavirus, a leading think tank said on Friday.

A man wearing a mask walks down a quiet street in Westminster, following the COVID-19 outbreak, in London, Britain, April 30, 2020. /Reuters

Per capita deaths for Britons that are of black Caribbean heritage were three times that for white British citizens, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said.

Per capita deaths among other black groups were double that of the population overall, while those of Indian descent also suffered more fatalities than average, the IFS said.

Health experts and academics are now searching for clues among the multiple medical, socio-economic, behavioural, cultural, environmental and biological factors that could be driving the association between COVID-19 and ethnicity.

Taking into account the fact that most minority groups are much younger on average than the white British population, per capita death rates across almost all minority groups looked disproportionately high, the IFS said in a report.

The higher death rate could be explained by ethnic minorities' greater likelihood to live in London or other cities hit hard by the virus, but geography was not the only factor.

"There is unlikely to be a single explanation here and different factors may be more important for different groups," said Ross Warwick, a research economist at the IFS.

"For instance, while Black Africans are particularly likely to be employed in key worker roles which might put them at risk, older Bangladeshis appear vulnerable on the basis of underlying health conditions."

Data from the U.S. has shown African Americans are more likely to die from COVID-19, highlighting long-standing disparities in health and inequalities in access to medical care there.

The UK government has also commissioned several studies to investigate COVID-19 in ethnic minorities, but clear reasons have yet to emerge.

"From the first two or three I have not seen any great consistency of analysis," Sir Patrick Vallance, the country's chief scientist, said at a briefing this week." I don't have an explanation."

The IFS said people from ethnic minorities in Britain were more likely to be hit financially by the coronavirus shutdown.

"Bangladeshi men are four times as likely as white British men to have jobs in shutdown industries, with Pakistani men nearly three times as likely," Lucinda Platt, a London School of Economics professor who sits on an IFS inequalities panel, said.

Household savings were lower than average among people of black African, black Caribbean or Bangladeshi descent. Those of Indian heritage and the largely foreign-born "other white" group did not seem to be facing extra economic risks, the IFS added.

Source(s): Reuters