Abstract
Emerging evidence has indicated a negative and disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black, Asian, and minority ethnic (BAME) communities. Previous studies have already reported that biological and social risk factors increase disease susceptibility, particularly in BAME communities. Despite frontline workers in ethnic minority communities in the United Kingdom’s National Health Service attempting to quell the pandemic, disproportionate numbers of BAME physicians and other health care workers have died of COVID-19. This unprecedented situation highlights ethical and moral implications, which could further augment the impact of the pandemic on their mental health. While the government attempts to mitigate the rate of virus transmission, certain key factors inadvertently augment the negative impact of the pandemic on the mental health and general well-being of BAME communities. This study examined the available literature to explore the association between, and the wider impact of, COVID-19 on BAME communities. Furthermore, this study aims to raise awareness and provide a deeper insight into current scientific discussions.
Highlights
On March 12, 2020, chief medical officers in the United Kingdom elevated the country’s risk status from moderate to high, and on March 23, 2020, the prime minister imposed a nationwide lockdown [8]
According to Carol Cooper, the head of equality, diversity and human rights at Birmingham Community Healthcare National Health Service (NHS) Trust [18]: Many of us knew that BAME people would be overrepresented - given their proportion of the population - in the mortality and morbidity figures because of the comorbidities that exist in our communities, because of the location of our communities in terms of the workforce being on the frontline [and] because of the amount of people that are caught in the poverty trap and live in households that have higher occupancy
Emerging data strongly suggest a disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on BAME communities in the United Kingdom [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11]
Summary
Many experts, including Duncan Young (professor, Intensive Care Medicine, University of Oxford), Dr Riyaz Patel (associate professor, Cardiology, University College London), and Naveed Sattar (professor, Metabolic Medicine, University of Glasgow), have suggested that ethnic minorities are at an increased risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection, severe disease, and poor outcomes owing to socially and biologically relevant reasons [11]. Individuals in ethnic minority communities are disproportionally employed in fields including those associated with public transport or delivery services, where there is a known, markedly higher risk of virus transmission It is common for BAME households to have several generations cohabiting within close confinement as culture and family are potentially important aspects of identity in these communities. In addition to reports from the United Kingdom [11], those from the United States have indicated that chronic conditions such as diabetes, asthma, hypertension, kidney disease, and obesity are more common in Black American than in White American populations [20] These conditions are associated with poor outcomes in COVID-19 cases. JMIR Public Health Surveill 2021 | vol 7 | iss. 2 | e22581 | p. 2 (page number not for citation purposes)
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