Impact of COVID-19 on Health Disparities in the United States - A Preliminary Study

Health disparities are the differences in health outcomes and health status among people belonging to different groups. This means that people with low socioeconomic status, old age, racial and ethnic minorities, who are often those with limited access to healthcare may often face a higher disease burden and experience worse health outcomes. The current pandemic of Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, provides a painful reminder of why inequities harm all of us as the devastating impact of the pandemic is apparent. This paper examines the differences in and possible cause of the rates of COVID infections, hospitalizations, ICU admissions and mortality rates across age, gender, race and Socioeconomic groups in the United States Keywords: Health disparity, Covid-19, Community health, Health system