COVID Does Not Discriminate, Governments Do: Race, Resilience and Resistance

• In Event: Race, Health Policy, and Disparities in Political Voice

Abstract

This study focuses on the disparate effects of anxiety during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and how various racial groups have coped with the pandemic differently. Though we know that communities of color have been hardest hit by the pandemic’s fatality rate, we do not know whether the majority of these communities support more strict CDC protocols. Using an online survey experiment design, participants are randomized to learn about the pandemic’s racial demographic disparity vs. learning about the overall death rates by state. The survey experiment was collected through YouGOV (Study 1, n=1000). While being disproportionately affected by the virus, exposure to more news frames like this can ware on someone’s mental health, trust in government and trust in medical experts. This paper highlights the need to focus on a sociopolitical vulnerability index among marginalized communities hardest hit by the pandemic and how these risk factors impact their health-seeking behaviors and trust in government. The author expects this study to reveal different risk-assessments and threat appraisal processes among men and women. The difference hinges upon their socialization process, strength in racial identity and preferred coping skills under stress.
One’s threat appraisal process in response to COVID-19 is largely shaped by the social and political identities one occupies, and the resources at their disposal to mitigate the threats posed by COVID-19. With greater vulnerability comes greater support for government interventions, though they do not always translate to greater personal health-seeking behaviors (not by choice). While trust in leadership matters (federal, state and city-level) and partisanship play a large role in driving one’s perception of the seriousness of the pandemic, less is known about the role of emotions in response to the pandemic, particularly among communities of color and women. In the end, the ability to cope with COVID-19 and mitigate one’s risk-factors are available to the few. Minority groups have found different ways to cope with anxiety provoked by COVID-19, even if their health-seeking behaviors do not show it (especially in their capacity as “essential workers”). Through the use of open-ended questions, participants also wrote about their anxieties surrounding the pandemic and many ended on a note of “required resilience” to weather the storm, especially among women and minority groups.

Author

• Vanessa Cruz Nichols, Indiana University