Children belonging to minority racial groups and low-income communities face higher rates of COVID-19 infection, mirroring racial disparities identified among adult COVID-19 patients, a new study shows.
The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, examined data collected between March 21 and April 28 from a COVID-19 testing site affiliated with Children's National Hospital in Washington, D.C. Researchers studied data for the first 1,000 patients tested at the site.
They found about 7 percent of white children tested positive for COVID-19, compared to 30 percent of Black and 46 percent of Hispanic children who tested positive.
The researchers also used data from the American Families Survey to separate the group of 1,000 patients into estimated family income quartiles. They found that children belonging to the highest income quartile had infection rates of about 9 percent versus 38 percent of those in the lowest income quartile.
Reasons for these disparities may be "socioeconomic factors that increase exposure, differences in access to healthcare and resources, as well as structural racism," said study author Monika Goyal, MD, associate division chief in the emergency medicine division at Children's National Hospital.
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