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Association between Racial Residential Segregation and COVID-19 Mortality

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Abstract

This study investigates the impact of racial residential segregation on COVID-19 mortality during the first year of the US epidemic. Data comes from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's and the University of Wisconsin's joint county health rankings project. The observation includes a record of 8,670,781 individuals in 1488 counties. We regressed COVID-19 deaths, using hierarchical logistic regression models, on individual and county-level predictors. We found that as racial residential segregation increased, mortality rates increased. Controlling for segregation, Blacks and Asians had a greater risk of mortality, while Hispanics and other racial groups had a lower risk of mortality, compared to Whites. The impact of racial residential segregation on COVID-19 mortality did not vary by racial group.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to express our appreciation to Katherine Hankins, PhD and Chetan Tiwari, PhD of the Department of Geosciences at Georgia State University for their valuable feedback on this research.

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  1. Urban Studies Institute, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Suresh Nath Neupane

  2. Department of Sociology, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Erin Ruel

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Neupane, S.N., Ruel, E. Association between Racial Residential Segregation and COVID-19 Mortality. J Urban Health 100, 937–949 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-023-00780-5

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