545. The Impact of COVID-19 on African Americans’ Health Attitudes and Information Seeking Behavior

Abstract

BackgroundAfrican-Americans suffer a disproportionate impact from COVID-19, comprising about 24% of deaths while representing 13% of the US population. We conducted a study to understand COVID-19’s impact on African-Americans’ health attitudes.MethodsIn April 2020, we surveyed online a national sample of US adults on their health attitudes and behaviors before and after the COVID-19 outbreak. Comparisons were analyzed using chi-squared tests.ResultsA total of 2,544 individuals completed the survey: 473 African-Americans, 282 Hispanics and 1,799 Caucasians responded. The mean ages of each group were 41.4 ± 11 years, 38.0 ± 11 years and 45.7 ± 13 years, respectively. Before COVID-19, African-Americans were least likely to report they had trust in science (53% vs. 68% for Hispanics and 77% for Caucasians; p< .01) and government (16% vs. 27% and 28%; p< .01). After COVID-19, the percentage of African-Americans who had trust in science and government fell further to 44% (p< .01) and 9% (p< .01), respectively, and remained significantly lower than the other two groups. Twice as many African-Americans vs. Caucasians stopped following science and health news after COVID-19 (9% vs. 4%, p< .01). The percentage of African-Americans who reported anxiety about their health rose from 30% pre-COVID to 53% after the outbreak (p< .01), and the percentage who reported anxiety about their family members’ health rose from 35% to 61% (p< .01). Only 25% of African-Americans surveyed agreed that if they contracted COVID-19, they were confident they would get the healthcare needed.ConclusionAfter COVID-19, African-Americans’ trust in science and government fell and a meaningful percentage stopped following science and health news, possibly reducing access to important health information. The percentage of African-Americans reporting anxiety about the future, about their health and about their family members’ health all increased significantly after COVID-19. Only a minority of African-Americans agreed they would get the needed healthcare if they contracted COVID-19. These findings have implications for the mental health and behavioral impacts of COVID-19 on African-Americans and for the development of health communications to high-disease-incidence populations.Disclosures All Authors: No reported disclosures