Don't blame the BAME: Ethnic and structural inequalities in susceptibilities to COVID‐19

• Published in: American Journal of Human Biology Vol. 32; no. 5; pp. e23478 - n/a
• Main Author: Bentley, Gillian R
• Format: Journal Article Web Resource
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken, USA John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.09.2020; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: Betacoronavirus; Commentaries; Coronavirus Infections - ethnology; COVID-19; Ethnic Groups; Global Health; Humans; Pandemics; Pneumonia, Viral - ethnology; SARS-CoV-2; Socioeconomic Factors
• ISSN: 1042-0533; 1520-6300
• DOI: 10.1002/ajhb.23478

From a biocultural perspective, it has been heartening to witness an early recognition in both the UK and the USA that inter‐population variation in susceptibilities to corona virus lies not in biology or our genes, but mostly in social and structural differences between human groups that have often led to health disparities (Bhala et al., 2020; Webb Hooper et al., 2020) (see Figure 1). [...]when socioeconomic factors as well as preexisting health conditions were controlled for in the ONS (2020) study cited above, the mortality risk for Blacks was reduced, but remained almost twice as high as whites, and higher for males (raising questions of course about what explains the residual differences); the figures for South Asians were similar (ONS, 2020). Given that mortality appears to result more from the inflammatory response engendered from exposure to COVID‐19, as well as its ability to attack many organs in the body, metabolic diseases render many individuals at high risk for adverse outcomes once they become ill (Matricardi, Dal Negro, & Nisini, 2020). [...]the Biobank longitudinal study in the UK has requested its current participants to enroll in a subsidiary study to examine those factors (genetic or otherwise) that could influence susceptibility to COVID‐19 (Biobank, 2020), although the proportion of BAME individuals participating in Biobank is lower than in the national population (Fry et al., 2017).Other physiological reasons for differential ethnic susceptibility to COVID‐19 have been suggested, including the potential of Vitamin D deficiency to increase susceptibility which would adversely affect people with darker skin living in countries at higher latitudes; this connection has since been downplayed (Hamiel, Kozer, & Youngster, 2020).