Hispanic and Black Americans experience disproportionately higher numbers of COVID-19 hospitalizations and mortalities. Early research indicates this is partly due to a higher burden of undetected and untreated medical conditions. The long-term goal of our research is to identify the impact of the medical reasons underlying healthcare inequities among underserved demographic groups in an evidence-based data-driven manner.
Together with Dr. Taneisha Wilson, Augusto and Carsten have been awarded a Peter G. Peterson Foundation Pandemic Response Policy Research Fund grant to mine a large collection of electronic health records (EHRs) of COVID-19 patients in the state of Rhode Island and establish relationships between patient factors and differential outcomes, thus identifying the medical mechanisms that predominate in these communities and contribute to more hospitalizations and deaths.