According to new federal data, Racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to be hospitalized with the flu in the United States.
Through the 2021-22 flu seasons excluding the 2020-21 season and flu vaccination coverage from the 2010-11 season through the 2021-22 season a new report looked at data from 2009-10 published by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday.
They found that compared to white adults, among Black adults influenza-related hospitalizations were 80% higher.
During most seasons, hospitalization rates for Black adults were between 1.5 and 2.4 times the rates among white adults although there was some variation by season.
Additionally, American Indian and Alaska Natives (Ai/AN) flu-related hospitalizations were 30% higher and hospitalizations among Hispanics were 20% higher.
For AI/AN adults during the 2011-12 season rates were highest and the 2021-22 seasons with rates 2.7 times those of white adults.
Meanwhile for Hispanics, the highest rates were seen and were 2.1 times those of their white counterparts during the 2009-10 and 2021-22 seasons.
Ranging from 60% to 90% of hospitalization rates of white adults the report also found that Asian/Pacific Islander adults had the lowest rates of hospitalization of all the racial and ethnic groups.
Rates are lower among racial and ethnic minorities, although experts say flu vaccination is the best protection against the flu.
CDC Acting Principal Deputy Director Dr. Debra Houry in a press briefing to reporters on Tuesday said “Every year, the flu continues to cause severe illness, hospitalization and death”.
“Flu vaccination rates have been consistently lower for Alaska Native adults in the United States since 2010 unfortunately, among black, Hispanic, and American Indian”.
During the 2021-22 season, 49.4% of white adults were vaccinated against the flu. By comparison, 37.9% of Hispanic minorities, just 42% of Black adults, and 40.9% of AI/AN adults were vaccinated.
Asian and Pacific Islander adults had the highest rate of vaccination at 54.2%.
According to the CDC there are several reasons for racial and ethnic disparities, including lack of access to health care and insurance, which in turn leads to less vaccine access. To vaccinate another reason for the disparities is missed opportunities.
“For adults who reported a recent medical checkup, vaccination coverage was still lower for Black, Hispanic, American Indian and Alaska Native and adults of other races than for white adults”, during the press conference Dr. Carla Black, an epidemiologist from the CDC’s Immunization Services Division, said.
“This suggests that health care providers are missing opportunities during routine medical appointments to vaccinate people from certain groups.”
Due to past racist health policies that have negatively affected America’s communities of colour she added there may be misinformation about how serious flu is and vaccine safety as well as distrust.
On Jan. 14, 2022, in Monterey Park, Calif a sign announces free flu vaccines outside a CVS pharmacy.
Including those of colour, to get the flu shot and that public health officials host outreach events including town halls and pop-up clinics to increase trust access to flu vaccines, CDC officials recommend that doctors encourage their patients.
After the U.S. had two years of little to no flu activity Black also encouraged flu vaccination due to the risk of a potentially severe flu season this year.
She said “Well, this means we might be ripe for a severe season, because people are not, you know, taking all the measures they took for COVID which also had an impact on flu like masking and social distancing, we’ve had mild flu season what we can so far is that”.
“In two years people haven’t had natural disease. There’s less natural immunity out there, so, you know. People are going back to work. All of these factors could contribute to us having a more severe flu season, people are traveling again”.
