B.C. 'actively discussing' collecting race-based data on COVID-19
Bethany Lindsay | CBC News | Posted: April 24, 2020 1:43 AM | Last Updated: April 24, 2020
Province already follows whether patients self-identify as Indigenous, Dr. Bonnie Henry says
B.C. isn't currently tracking information on the race or ethnicity of COVID-19 patients, but it's been the topic of a lot of discussion, according to the provincial health officer.
The province does, however, gather data on whether patients self-identify as Indigenous for all communicable diseases, including COVID-19, Dr. Bonnie Henry said Thursday.
She said B.C. officials are "actively discussing" if and how to collect information on the race and ethnicity of novel coronavirus patients.
"We know it can be an incredibly important marker, and certainly in the United States it is something that is routinely collected. Part of that is because of challenges around access to healthcare," Henry said.
The federal government isn't tracking racial data related to COVID-19, and chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam recently told CBC News "there are currently no plans" to do so.
But that doesn't preclude other jurisdictions from collecting that information.
Toronto announced Wednesday that it's working on a system to build data sets that include race and ethnicity even though Ontario's provincial government has said it's not a priority.
"Many have said that COVID-19 is the great equalizer, in that it doesn't discriminate. But that's sadly not the truth," Toronto Coun. Joe Cressy said.
U.S. data shows black patients more likely to die
In some parts of the U.S., black and Latino patients have been much more likely to die of the disease.
In Chicago, for example, black residents account for 70 per cent of COVID-19 deaths, though they only represent 30 per cent of the population.
Evidence from the twelves states that are collecting race and ethnicity data shows that black patients are 2.5 times more likely to die of the virus than the general population, according to the public policy research group APM Research Lab.
Watch: Dr. Bonnie Henry talks about expanding B.C.'s data collection
In B.C., Henry said officials are collecting more detailed demographic information on what she called the "unintended consequences" of some of the measures that have been put in place to stop the spread of COVID-19.
This data would be used to explore how the current restrictions on the economy and the health-care system have affected people's lives.
"We are very much looking at both race and social and economic status in assessing those impacts," Henry said.
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