Summary
Summary: Racial/ethnic minorities, especially black Americans, suffered a disproportionate impact from COVID-19 compared with others. COVID-19 has had a particularly deleterious effect on black children and adolescents. Their COVID-19 mortality rates are twice as high as those seen in white children and adolescents. Many federal data sets are currently missing key demographic and social disadvantage measurements essential for equitable data-driven health decisions. Researchers address two data equity challenges as they affect black children’s lives: missing data and generational effects of data inequities in black children.
Findings: Researchers conclude that our data infrastructure must also have the capacity to link health and social determinant data together to detect and respond to the accumulating negative consequences on the horizon for black children and adolescents. It is imperative to ask and monitor who controls and produces data. Findings show the critical need for a COVID-19 public health data governance structure in which data produced at the state and federal levels can better serve as the roadmap for risk reduction.
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