Instruction
Step 1: Find and read one recent (2020-2021) peer-reviewed article regarding racial health disparities and COVID-19.
You can do a Google Search first. Find the article of interest and then look for the article in the CSULA Library.
To access an article from the CSULA Library:
go to the library page (library (Links to an external site.)) and click "journals" in the center of the page to do a journal search
type in the name of the journal in the "journal search"
get online access to the journal (log in with your MyCalStateLA ID username and password)
search for the specific article once you get online access to the journal
Step 2: Briefly summarize the articles. What was the article about? What data were analyzed? What conclusions were made?
Step 3: Go to the LA County Department of Health Services (DHS) website (LA County DHS (Links to an external site.)), scroll down a little, and click the "Health Services Dashboard" in the COVID-19 Information box. A file with the latest demographic data about COVID-19 in our county will open. Scroll all the way down to the racial/ethnic information section.
Step 4: Does the data for LA county support the idea of racial health disparities with regard to COVID-19? Why? Why not? What specific data (evidence) can you use to support your arguments?
Please keep in mind that you must think about the data in terms of relative population representation. For example, it is not informative to study a population in Japan and then say most of the people hospitalized were Japanese while very few Germans were hospitalized. You should probably look-up the demographic racial and ethnic makeup of LA County (https://datausa.io/profile/geo/los-angeles-county-ca/#demographics (Links to an external site.)) to help you interpret the meaning of the COVID numbers [scroll down to Race and Ethnicity and make sure you are looking at the latest numbers from 2018; we just had a census in 2020, but the numbers have not been made available].
Also keep in mind that you are looking at data for hospitalizations (not deaths). This means you are looking at data for individuals who were able to get access to medical care and are still alive.
Step 5: What have you learned in this class that can help address racial issues surrounding COVID-19? Can you apply anthropological ideas to racial health disparities in this current pandemic?