Thread by @docrocktex26

Make sure to gather specifics about how much data comes from public vs. private hospitals/labs. I wrote my MPH thesis on how PH data skews based on where/how the data is pulled. County hospital data in most of America (esp the South) will typically skew heavily towards POC.

https://twitter.com/soledadobrien/status/1247294085595103232

The key will be to synthesize data that filters up from county/public labs and hospitals that have relatively more fluid channels with state health departments/CDC/CMS/HHS than private practice MDs/hospitals/labs that are submitting data through smaller, less streamlined means.

We’ll also need more socioeconomic info as well as stats on the pre-COVID health status of everyone who suffers and perishes from the virus. It’s more than likely that pre-existing gender/race health disparities will be multiplied by a clearly quantifiable sum, and by geography.

In other words, the marginalized will be hit 1st and hardest by any & every crisis that befalls this country. No mystery, no surprise. We keep trying to tell people this, but NO. The question that still remains is how many privileged folk have to suffer & die too b4 they’ll GAF?

It’s not a conspiracy theory. Every policy on the @GOP platform is detrimental to every demographic that reliably votes against them, the only way to escape the mayhem is to be wealthy enough to afford voting Republican. This is America. 😒

https://twitter.com/inkittenveritas/status/1247309739651821569

Here’s what I mean re: Louisiana. The 70%/32% disparity doesn’t tell the whole story b/c it doesn’t include the patient demographics of the hospitals/labs that submitted data or what the typical racial breakdown is for the death rates at those hospitals. cnn.com/world/live-new…

On any given day at a lot of these public/county hospitals around the country, 40-70% of the ppl who are suffering and dying are POC. It’s a function of the public health system’s very existence in America, no story about healthcare is being told completely without that context.

Thread Alert 🚨

https://twitter.com/nhannahjones/status/1247190540766019588

I have yet to see any of these articles acknowledge the built-in overrepresentation of Black people in public/county health systems or the fact that COVID data culled primarily from public/county health systems in America will skew Black in counties with large Black populations.

https://twitter.com/sarahwhitesk/status/1247601456468963328

They’ll be dazed and confused when the public/county system data from states/counties with low Black populations suddenly show high infection/hospitalization/death rates amongst socioeconomically disadvantaged WWC folk who live in the sticks aka coal/meth/opiate/gun country...

A lot of the folk breathlessly bringing us this COVID disparity data have never stepped foot into a public/county hospital/clinic in a predominately White/Native/Latino/Asian or Black community in America. They don’t know what living on SS/Medicaid/Medicare/county rolls is like.

Likewise, the MSM is doing a piss poor job of understanding then effectively communicating the gigantic, scatterbrained system of public vs. private healthcare in this country, and how that dichotomy will unavoidably impact the delivery of care to the marginalized vs. privileged.

They won’t even do the bare minimum of just stopping to ask how much of the data they’re reporting is coming from public/county hospitals in predominately Black/POC localities vs. how much is coming from private, Cadillac hospitals in predominantly White rural towns and suburbs.

Here’s a receipt on the private vs. public data dichotomy. Look at how many tests are being processed at private labs in Texas. 👀 If those numbers don’t fully make it into the same “public health department” report that’s submitted for the whole state, a huge story goes untold.

These are nuances that ultimately require a great deal of knowledge, training and experience to fully understand, but suffice it to say that COVID in America will be a very *unique* data mining operation b/c our outcomes are not only confounded by geography/class but by race too.

This isn’t like comparing Italians to South Koreans as 2 distinct nationalities, it’s comparing 50 states against each other, plus a background of centuries of institutionalized racism & socioeconomic disparities for specific cultural identities, with covid on top of it all.

Really great thread that breaks down all of the confounding variables I describe above. The racial disparities must be analyzed in the context of the fact that the public/county data is skewed by the demographics of the population that uses those facilities in each locality...🧾

https://twitter.com/jedkolko/status/1247932869256736768