A brand new report from the federal Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention supplies probably the most complete look to date on the disproportionate toll COVID-19 is taking over Alaska Native and American Indian individuals residing in Alaska.
General, Alaska Native and American Indian individuals have made up nearly a fifth of the state’s inhabitants however almost a 3rd of all deaths, the report discovered.
Between the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020 and final December, Indigenous Alaskans have been hospitalized with the virus and died from it at charges 3 times that of white residents, in line with the report launched Thursday.
The report relies on information shared with the CDC by the Alaska Division of Well being and Social Providers between March 2020 and December 2021.
Many Indigenous Alaskans face a number of limitations to well being fairness and entry, together with historic trauma and structural racism and distant or rural residing that makes it tougher and dearer to entry care.
The findings from the most recent report confirmed that the virus’s mortality charge was about 3 times as excessive for Alaska Native and American Indian individuals residing within the state (297 deaths per 100,000) when in comparison with white Alaskans (104 per 100,000) as soon as adjusted for age.
The adjusted hospitalization charge was equally excessive: 742 hospitalizations per 100,000 Indigenous Alaskans in contrast with 273 hospitalizations per 100,000 white Alaskans — representing a virtually three-fold danger for Alaska Native individuals.
The findings echo earlier Alaska research — together with these carried out by the state well being division and tribal well being organizations — which discovered clear, race-based disparities affecting who will get COVID-19, who’s hospitalized for it and who dies.
Nationwide, COVID-19 has affected Black, Indigenous, Hispanic and different individuals of colour probably the most, information has proven.
On its web site, the CDC cites “long-standing systemic well being and social inequities” as a significant contributing issue to why individuals from racial and ethnic minority teams are at an elevated danger general of getting sick and dying from COVID-19.
Discrimination, lack of well being care entry and poverty are all “inequities in social determinants of well being that put racial and ethnic minority teams at elevated danger,” in line with the CDC.
However regardless of these inequities, predominantly Alaska Native communities have lengthy had among the highest COVID-19 vaccination charges in Alaska and within the U.S., to the credit score of tribal well being organizations and well being aides who’ve deep roots within the communities they serve.
The latest CDC report recommends that public well being professionals “proceed to work with tribal well being organizations in Alaska to supply culturally competent and regionally required well being interventions,” and that present well being care initiatives ought to “respect the information and knowledge of those communities as consultants on their very own wants.”