A new Policy Watch, Early State Vaccination Data Raise Warning Flags for Racial Equity, explores the latest state-reported data on vaccination by race/ethnicity available on KFF’s COVID-19 state data and policy tracker.
As of January 19, 2021, 17 states were reporting some vaccination data by race/ethnicity, including 16 states reporting the distribution of vaccinations by race/ethnicity.
Black Americans’ share of vaccinations is smaller than their share of cases in 16 reporting states and smaller than their share of deaths in 15 of the states. The trend is similar for Hispanic Americans with them accounting for a smaller share of vaccinations compared to cases and deaths in most states reporting data.
White Americans’ share of vaccinations is larger than their share of cases in 13 of the 16 reporting states and larger than their share of deaths in 9 states.
Asian Americans are experiencing fewer and smaller gaps between their share of vaccinations and cases in reporting states. Data on Asians’ share of deaths is limited and data gaps also exist for American Indian and Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander people.
Vaccines are not yet broadly available and states are prioritizing specific groups before the general public, so vaccination patterns may change as more data is available. However, data and our news reporting at KHN have shown that vaccination is lagging by various measures for people of color. KFF will regularly update the data by race/ethnicity to track racial disparities in access and administration of COVID-19 vaccines.
Also available is a new data note examining the makeup (by race/ethnicity, income level, age, gender, education, and citizenship status) and health insurance coverage status of the estimated 15.5 million health care workers with direct patient contact. Health and long-term care workers were among the first groups prioritized for the COVID-19 vaccination based on federal guidelines, which states have tailored and implemented.
Some key findings in the data note include: