Member-only story
THE COLOR OF CLIMATE
Air Pollution Was Crippling Black Communities on the Gulf Coast. Then Came Covid-19.
Researchers are empowering residents to advocate for better protection by providing them with hyper-local health data
This is The Color of Climate, a weekly column from Future Human exploring how climate change and other environmental issues uniquely impact the future of communities of color.
Over 48,000 people have died of the novel coronavirus in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas — the five states that make up the Gulf Coast. That’s 20% of the over 234,000 people who’ve died across the country. In all of those states, Black people have had either the highest or second-highest coronavirus death rate in these states, according to APM Research Lab. (Indigenous people had the highest death rate in Mississippi; Latinx people had the highest death rate in Texas.)
Environmental and public health researchers have warned since April that long-term exposure to air pollution in Black communities in the U.S. (and the respiratory illnesses it’s been linked to) make Black people with Covid-19 more likely to die or have severe complications than white people. Resources need to be channeled to these communities…
