Assessing Vulnerability Indicators and Race/Ethnicity

This past week, our recent COVID report was recently featured on the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health website. Led by CNK Director Paul Ong and supported by UCLA Fielding School professors Vickie Mays and Ninez Ponce and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research‘s California Health Interview Survey, the study assessing four vulnerability indicators being used by public agencies to select the most COVID-19 vulnerable neighborhoods for interventions.

These indicators can play a role in prioritizing the provision of pandemic resources and services; consequently, they have implications for how many people of color and minority neighborhoods are served.

This study compares three pre-pandemic indicators and a more recently developed indicator based on pre-existing health conditions. The analysis focuses on the numbers of people of color residing in designated high-vulnerability neighborhoods, and the relative number of minority neighborhoods that fall into the high-vulnerability areas. Race/ethnicity is important because people of color encounter multiple dimensions of inequality that are only partially reflected in the indicators.

The findings show noticeable differences in the groups and places designated as being vulnerable, thus the choice of which indicator to use has highly consequential implications in terms of who is served and who is not along racial lines.

To see the full summary and findings of the report, access the news post here >>> Assessing Vulnerability Indicators and Race/Ethnicity

Access the report here >>> Assessing Vulnerability Indicators and Race/Ethnicity