Episode 27 – How are supply chain issues impacting academic publishing?

Episode 17. Why has COVID-19 hit Latino community so hard? I’m your host karma Chavez. And this summer we’re going to spend some time highlighting the important community-based research of affiliates of the Latino research Institute. The youngest of the three arms of Latino studies at UT under the leadership of professor Deborah Bara Medina, the LRI, his mission is to provide the infrastructure for the creation and dissemination of quality information about issues affecting Latino populations in the region, state and nation.

The LRI serves as a resource for communities, advocates, researchers, policymakers, and other stakeholder. Our first guest in this series is Rogelio Saenz professor of demography at the university of Texas at San Antonio, where he was the Dean of the college of public policy for nearly a decade. Recently he won the American sociological association, Cox Johnson Frazier award for scholarship and services, social media.

He’s also an affiliate of the Latino research Institute and has written extensively on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Latino community. In one piece, he discussed how in April, we hit a horrible milestone as 100,000 Latinos in the U S had died from COVID-19. The majority of these deaths occurred in California and Texas.

Although on first glance, it would seem that the number of Latinos who have died is proportionate to their population. Percentage. Professor signs explains that the number obscures a devastating reality for Latino communities in the U S and I’m really excited to get to unpack some of these numbers with him here today.

Professor Saenz, welcome to Latin Xperts.

I thank you very much for the invitation professor Chavez.

Definitely. And so I want to go ahead and jump in here with you into your claim about COVID disproportionate impact on Latino communities, even though it might seem otherwise at first glance. So, so why has the impact been disruptive?

Yeah, this has been, uh, the, the case that, uh, that we saw early on and I have been tracking down the, the deaths of where. From, um, uh, March of 2020 into our early, um, uh, April. And one of the things that was really coming out was that Latinos were disproportionate. W, uh, overrepresented among people who were catching the virus, they were disproportionately underrepresented when it came to, uh, dying.

Uh, so that kind of re uh, raised a red flag, but immediately that became very obvious that it was because are very much younger population. So we tend to be disproportionately, overrepresented among the younger age categories, where the probability of death is low. And, uh, once you control those, uh, differences for age differences back in, uh, April or so, April, may of 2020, it was clear that Latinos were dying rates about 3.4 times 3.5 times than the, than the white population.

Those numbers have gotten. Uh, the disparities are still great, but are somewhat smaller right now. We’re talking. 2.3, 2.4 times death in the community compared to the white community.

Well, and even if we’re only talking 2.3 or 2.5, I mean, it’s still very significant. So could you, can you still help us understand these numbers a little bit? And so Latinos are generally a lot younger overall our average age. Uh, and yet when we started to look at the numbers related to death, even though initially it was one thing, as you said, it was sort of lower.

Um, Latino deaths actually are falling in those lower ages. And can you talk a little bit about what that looks.

Yeah, and this is, uh, this all goes back to fact that. Latinos have been disproportionately overrepresented among people that were on the front lines that were in essential industries, uh, that didn’t have the luxury of being able to work from home so that we find, for example, uh, even right now, it’s close to 90% of, uh, whites who have died have been 65 of age and older.

Uh, in the case of the Latino population, it’s about six right now. It’s about 60%. So you have all these younger Latinos who are dying. Uh, right now, I think it’s something like 28% of all, Latinos who have died have been between the ages of 50 to 64. Uh, and that compares to about 10%, uh, for the white population. And then you also find that even among people, less than 50 years of age, 11% or so of Latinos have died, uh, have died have been less than 50 to about 2% for the, uh, for the, for the white population. So you really see disparities that you see that whites who have died have been disproportionately older individuals that are associated early on that it was older individuals who are done.

But Latinos have been much more likely to be dying at younger ages.

And as part of that, as a result of there’s exist pre-existing conditions, is it stressful lives? Is it lack of health care?

Yeah. You have all of those factors that, uh, that really have this confluence of factors that work together. So we see, uh, the condition. Uh, in the Latino community, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, et cetera. Uh, then we also find Latinos are also the group that is, that has the highest rates of, uh, non of not having, uh, healthcare insurance.

So that contributes of course, the, uh, to, to the pre-existing conditions, uh, worse health outcomes and so forth. Uh, and then you have issues having to do again with people are working, the kinds of jobs that they have. That are, that are, um, a greater risk of the virus and then greater degrees of poverty in our, in our communities where you have people that are living to each other.

And you may have a multi-generation homes where you have children, you have parents, you have grandkids. All living under the same roof and in closer contact. So when, um, the CDC, for example, was talking about that if people caught the virus and they should, uh, they should self quarantine and stay in their room, user own bathroom, we know in the, in the Latino community and as well as other communities of color, is possible to do because there may be only one bathroom in the whole home.

There may be one or two bedrooms and so forth. So people don’t have that, that ability to be able to self quarantine.

Yeah. I mean, I think this is, you know, thinking about my own childhood home, seven people, one bathroom that was, would have been no way. Yeah. And I think there, I mean, I’m interested in what you have to say about the fact that I imagined, or at least I remember seeing things that were really engaging news reports.

Op-eds, it’s seem that we’re engaging in a kind of victim blaming. And so it’s about Latino culture, the way Latinos live. This is why the impacts. And, and, and what would you say in response back.

Yeah.

Uh, there, has to do with the conditions that I mentioned in terms of poverty, the crowding, and So forth. So there’s a lot of that. Uh, and. Yeah, with that big victim blaming. And I did a number of, of interviews. And that is where I made sure that when reporters went there, I was going okay, we can’t focus there because that all of a sudden, you just say, it’s the individual’s fault.

So you shouldn’t be getting together, et cetera, templates. When in reality you have all these conditions. That, uh, that put Latinos and other people of, of color in, uh, in harms way. And we know then, uh, that those kinds of networks, social networks have always. Very important in the survivability a Latino communities, African-Americans Asians uh, as well as, um, as immigrant communities as well.

So they have always been very, very, very helpful, we can see that in those kinds of situations, they also have other kinds of, particularly in a, in a pandemic. But one of the things that I kept telling reporters also. Again, that they shouldn’t focus on on, on this, in terms of the families that people had gotten together and so forth, we saw in the white community, we saw, that you had all these students out there interacting with one another without masks,

uh, and, uh, people that were.

Totally against wearing masks and so forth. And they were out there there wasn’t none of that kind of pointing the finger and saying, oh look, it’s because, they’re getting together drinking and so forth. That is causing deaths in the fight.

So I’m interested in what happens when we begin to parse out the different types of Latina. Such as thinking about undocumented immigrants or Afro-Latinos or indigenous migrants, or even those from different Latin American or Caribbean countries. And I don’t know if you have that data, but, but if you do, what do those numbers tell us about COVID.

Yeah. Uh, unfortunately the data are very limited in those kinds of questions we can address. So, uh, the Def data that we have been for all Latino groups, uh, the subgroups put together, and right now we can. Parse out, even among females compared to males and so forth. So those kinds of questions I think, are going to be important in understanding the full impact of, uh, of, uh COVID.

Uh, but might be until after the pandemic and so forth more data, become a. Uh, to address those questions. I I’m particularly interested in breakdown for example, with, um, and citizens, uh, and people born in here in the, in the U S I suspect that because, uh, immigrants were more likely to be on the front lines, uh, working in industry such as meat packing.

Uh, industries. And we remember in, uh, in April and may 20 20th, where there was just these major outbreak of death. And this is where we find immigrants. we also find them in agricultural kind of industries again that were, that were very hard to hit. fortunately, the vaccination became a baby, I very pleased to see the state of California, for example, take this proactive kind of approach in going to the field and making the vaccines available too.

Right. Agricultural workers. Uh, because many of those, uh, obviously a fear also of going to get a vaccine, particularly where we see yeah. Anti immigrant, um, sentiments, roundups that, uh, that the Trump administration did in.

Well, and it makes me think what you just said that, of course it’s not just COVID-19 that kills, but it’s racism and xenophobia that kill also. And I’m wondering if you could talk a little bit about that relationship between COVID-19 and racism and xenophobia specifically, as it seems to be connected to Latinos, we kind of know a lot about, uh, relation to Asians first.

Yeah.

And so there has been a lot of, uh, attention, uh, particularly with racism, uh, that will direct debt against patients. But we see that in the, the Latino community as, uh, as well. Where, if people were speaking Spanish, for example, you have all these social media kind of, uh, and so forth that you see that, uh, Latinos and Latinas being out for not speaking English and so forth.

I think that, uh, you see a lot of the assumptions. Uh, that Latinos are immigrants that they don’t belong here. They, uh, they’re here undocumented. And so for, so all that perceptions uh, affects very much the treatment of, uh, of Latinos or acceptability into this country. We’ve been here, generations and generations and generations and, uh, most of the Southwest, uh, land that belonged to Mexico at, uh, at one point in time.

Uh, then I think that with that systemic racism also comes fact that we see high levels of, um, percentages the Latino community that don’t have access to healthcare, Texas. One of the states that hasn’t Medicaid, even during the pandemic, which makes it difficult for people to get Obamacare.

I think that we see it in states like Texas, for example, where the leadership governor. Really, uh, didn’t protect the workers in this country, in this state, as it was the push to open up Texas for business. it was on the backs of Latinos

Yeah.

With the Latino community workforce, there is this disposability kind of a view and so forth that these are that are going to be feeding us that are going to put food on our table and so forth.

Uh, and, but there was little, uh, care just like previously, before the pandemic, in terms of providing for the healthcare needs, and, and other kinds of, uh, amenities that, that are required.

Yeah. Well, so I’m interested in your, you started writing about this very early in. If I’m not mistaken, you were one of the first people who was really digging into the numbers and really getting that message out there. A lot of that was published on Latino rebels. And I’m wondering how, if at all your work has been received or the kinds of policy impacts, perhaps that it has had at least here in the state of tech.

Yeah, I think, uh, there are probably two sites that, that you see that, that I think, uh, very early on, um, this was, um, when I was doing the work and I was trying to get it out as quickly as possible to get that information out. And that’s when, uh, early on with Latino decisions.

Hmm.

uh, then Latino rebels is tied into that.

So they, they were also distributing the work and um, feedback that was coming from, the Latino community was really very appreciative and really opening eyes and people were spreading the information to make sure that people knew what was going on in the, in the Latino community. think in the.

Here in Texas. I don’t, I don’t think that, that the big three that Abbott Paxton and, and, uh, uh, Dan Patrick, because we, we, there was little that was coming across in terms of, uh, deaths that were taking place in the, in the Latino community. remember what was going on here in San Antonio, for example, in July or so of where the numbers were, uh, were high.

Our hospitals were filled valley, uh, also. In June, July and August, where there were no efforts to try to control the situation there in terms of, from the leadership. Uh, if anything, judges were being, uh, were being discouraged and, and, uh, from, from, uh, imposing, um, stay at home, uh, laws locked down.

Hmm.

Uh, so there, I think that that was something that the leader texted leadership really didn’t want to hear. And you even see that it was, um, I think it was until, I it was about February or so February or so where there was a commission that looked at the impact of and they simply mentioned the number of to Latinos without any.

Any emphasis on the reality of what those numbers look like, that there have been only two states in the country where more Latinos have died than whites, Texas, and California those two states. And reports didn’t mention any of that. So the information I think. Publishing and so forth getting out there.

I think that in the Latino community, I think uh, scholars others the community were picking that up. But, uh, unfortunately I don’t think that the, here in Texas was the hearing backdoor or wanting to hear it.

Yeah. Yeah. Not surprising in some ways there. So I guess, um, we just have a couple of minutes left here in the show and you know, we’re moving now into a time where numbers of new cases are down. Hospitalizations are down. Deaths nationally are trending downward. And of course this is all in the United States.

The global context is very different in this regard, but if we think about the research that you’ve done, what’s the big takeaway for you now in this historical?

I think the big takeaway really is the systemic racism that has been part of this. For so long, I think the pandemic has exposed to a lot of that. And people that have been in denial, I think are around to saying, yes, this is something that, uh, that exists. I think that the, the disproportionate impact that it has had in our community, uh, and I think that there have also been the lessons that have been.

That in right now, we have the vaccination that is, that is available and so forth. And we still hear that, uh, people of color, including, uh, Latinos and African-Americans are disproportionately underrepresented among people who have been vaccinated. And this of course represents the systemic racism that we found in, in this country.

African-Americans for long, have been totally denied. Healthcare and, uh, or that were carried out on African-Americans. And so syphilis studies and so forth that put at risk where there’s a distrust of the, of the government. That’s the same that we find in the, in the Latino community, uh, as well.

we see, I think for some of those lessons that is that if we look at the counties across Texas, we find that the highest rate. Uh, vaccinations, the people who have, uh, received the vaccinations along the border counties. Uh, so that like I’ll go county like El Paso, 64, 60 6% uh, Latinos, uh, persons 12 and older have been vaccinated.

see some Panda panhandle counties you see greater proportions of whites or in the. Texas there you find 24, 20 6% of a person’s 12 and older uh, have been vaccinated. Anything here it’s clearly shows devastation that took place the border, uh, areas, people losing loved ones and so forth, where even though that there’s continues to be kind of a concern that the Latinos want to get vaccinated.

That you find that people are taking those precautions, that they lost loved ones where many with higher socioeconomic resources or with white, it has been more theoretical when they think about loss of, uh, of people who have died, that it has not hit as, as close as it has Latino committee.

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for all of that. Background, if we’re talking through your important research with us, because, uh, this is just it’s crucial research, especially for those of us here in Texas. And so, um, thank you so much for being here today.

Professor science.

you very much for the

invitation.

Once again, our guest today was professor Rohelio science, uh, demography professor at the university of Texas at San Antonio.

And I’ve been your host, Carmen Chavez, and this is Latin experts.