Many immigrants and people of color are among the more than 1,000 health workers who have died of COVID-19 in the U.S.
Early analysis of an investigation conducted by The Guardian and Kaiser Health News suggests that the coronavirus pandemic is taking a disproportionately high toll on minorities.
The organizations have been gathering data on U.S. health care workers who have died from the virus, in a project titled Lost on the Frontline.
They looked at the reported 1,079 victims _ identified based on news reports, obituaries and social media sources _ and published profiles of 177 of them.
Of those, 62.1% were identified as Black, Latinx, Asian/Pacific Islander or Native American, and 30.5% were born outside the U.S.
The results go on par with a recent Harvard Medical School study, which suggested that health care workers of color were nearly twice as likely as their white counterparts to contract the new coronavirus.
In the study, which was published in The Lancet Public Health last month, researchers analyzed data from more than 2 million COVID Symptom Study app users in the U.S. and the U.K.
They found that health care workers of color were more likely to care for patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19, and more likely to report using inadequate or reused protective gear.
"If you think to yourself, 'Health care workers should be on equal footing in the workplace,' our study really showed that's definitely not the case," said Dr. Andrew Chan, a senior author and an epidemiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Lost on the Frontline also highlighted the importance of immigrant work for the U.S. health system.
About one in five health workers were not born in the U.S., according to a 2018 report released by the American Immigration Council.
They play "an important role in filling medical shortfalls in disadvantaged communities because of the large disparities in access to health care that exist in the United States," according to the report, which suggests that immigrant health workers tend to work in the most vulnerable communities.
