Virus impact on ethnic minorities linked to air pollution

A new study has warned that the impact of coronavirus on people from minority ethnic groups has been linked to air pollution and overcrowded and poor-standard housing.

The study of 400 hospital patients, led by Dr Marina Soltan at the University of Birmingham, found that patients from ethnic minorities were twice as likely as white patients to live in areas of environmental and housing deprivation, and that people from these areas were twice as likely to arrive at hospital with more severe coronavirus symptoms and to be admitted to intensive care units.

It also found that male patients were more likely to be hospitalised than female patients, while patients from areas with the highest barriers to housing and services accounted for 47.4 per cent of all admissions.

Just under 70 per cent of BAME patients included in the study were populated within areas of high living environment deprivation compared to 50.2 per cent of white patients. It is thought that this could begin to explain the higher levels of intensive care admissions amongst this group.

Previous research has revealed that minority ethnic groups have been disproportionately affected by coronavirus, accounting for 34 per cent of critically ill coronavirus patients in the UK despite constituting 14 per cent of the population.

Soltan said: “Our findings have potential public health implications and implications for how we develop clinical risk management tools including how we train clinicians to undertake the most important aspect of a clinical consultation effectively - history taking.  The findings are also significant in understanding more about the effects of overcrowding and air pollution in BAME households not just in the UK but internationally.

“The next steps for this research are to take what we have learned in Birmingham and apply to that to other areas of the country; we are currently leading a multi-centre study working with other centres nationally to gain a wider understanding across multiple geographical locations.”

Dr Aarash Saleh, an NHS respiratory doctor and member of the Doctors Against Diesel campaign, said: “We need more research like this to understand how air pollution interacts with other societal injustices to exacerbate health inequities, including death from Covid-19. Strategic responses to air pollution are urgently needed and must acknowledge and address the socioeconomic and racial intersections of this public health crisis.”