By Vanessa Grubbs, California Health Care Foundation, December 2, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has been wreaking havoc across the US for eight months, and new cases and deaths are reaching alarming and record-setting heights. For many Americans, especially people of color with low incomes, the effects of the pandemic are far more personal than the devastating numbers that dominate news media reports.

To better understand the scope of the pandemic’s impact on the health care experiences of California’s residents with low incomes, CHCF conducted the Listening to Californians with Low-Incomes Survey in partnership with NORC at the University of Chicago, a national research organization. The survey, conducted last summer, focused on adults between 18 and 64 years old who had consulted a health care professional since March 2019.

The widespread systemic racism faced by Black people has been tragically exemplified by the disproportionate number who have died of COVID-19. While Black people make up 6% of the state’s population and slightly more than 4% of COVID-19 cases, they account for 7.3% of deaths.

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