(Press-News.org) America's stark racial disparities in health care have been exposed by COVID-19, but a new study from Michigan State University suggests that Black individuals are more likely than conservative White people to adhere to public health standards due to disparities.
The study, published in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, used data from MSU's State of the State Survey that was captured during the initial COVID-19 outbreak from a representative group of 800 adults in Michigan.
"Our findings suggest that although COVID impacts all Michiganders, reactions to COVID are politicized. This is significant because if people base their response to COVID on politics rather than science, they may be placing themselves at risk," said Zachary Neal, MSU associate professor of psychology and study co-author.
What's more: Michigan residents' race impacted how much politics affected their views of COVID.
"When COVID was politicized, partisanship mattered more to White Michiganders than it did to Black Michiganders," Neal said. "This is significant because it could mean that White Michiganders are more likely to misjudge COVID risks due to politics. For example, although Black Michiganders on average said they would comply with stay-at-home orders, only the more liberal White Michiganders said they would comply."
In considering political ideology, the findings reveal that conservative White individuals were more likely to have noncompliance attitudes toward local and state COVID orders than more liberal White people and Black people who tend towards compliance.
Overall, Black Michiganders' attitudes toward the pandemic were more in line with public health recommendations around mask wearing and stay-at-home orders than views held by their White counterparts. Researchers point to a long history of health, social and economic disparities as the driving force. They found that Black Michiganders were more likely to contract COVID-19 or lose their job as a result of COVID-19 and thereby more likely to comply with regulations.
"Black Americans experience a disproportionately greater rate of preexisting conditions, such as hypertension and diabetes, that place them at an elevated COVID risk," said Kaston Anderson-Carpenter, MSU assistant professor of psychology and study lead author. "Since social determinants of health adversely impact Black Michiganders, adhering to the restrictions may also be perceived as a preventive health measure. Black people who work in essential jobs may also care for family members who have preexisting conditions, which may also influence their adherence to COVID restrictions."
Using data from the State of the State survey, conducted by MSU's Institute for Public Policy and Social Research, Anderson-Carpenter and Neal measured 12 areas of COVID-19 sentiment across four categories: personal impacts, the perceived severity of the virus, the state of Michigan's response to rising caseloads and Michigan's initial stay-at-home order.
Beyond the politicization of the virus, Anderson-Carpenter and Neal's paper reinforces the national conversation about Black people being disproportionately affected by the virus.
"Very little has happened between May and now to reduce racial disparities or political divisions; if anything, both are now worse than before," Neal said. "Knowing now what was happening then -- and, now that we're experiencing another surge in cases -- more resources need to go to the Black communities to address both the health and economic impacts of COVID, particularly now that vaccines are available."
By highlighting the impact of partisan perceptions, the researchers hope their study stresses the extensive disparities related to COVID health care and encourage public health officials to focus on providing assistance to Black communities.
"It is imperative to understand how COVID has been politicized in Michigan as a microcosm of the nation, and we hope the study encourages politicians to make COVID a nonpartisan issue," Anderson-Carpenter said.
INFORMATION:
(Note for media: Please include the following link to the study in all online media coverage: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40615-020-00939-9)
Fiber-optic cables run underneath nearly all city grids across the United States and provide internet and cable TV to millions, but what if those systems could also provide valuable information related to hazardous events such as earthquakes and flooding? A team of researchers at Penn State have found they can do just that.
The scientists are using fiber-optic distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) technology to turn existing telecommunication infrastructure that is already installed underground into a valuable resource for monitoring ground vibrations.
"We discovered the fibers could pick up a wide variety of signal vibrations, from thunderstorms to human walking steps to music concerts," said Tieyuan Zhu, assistant professor of geophysics at Penn State and principal investigator on ...
American Geophysical Union U.S. Geological Survey Joint ReleaseWASHINGTON--Southern California can now expect to see post-wildfire landslides occurring almost every year, with major events expected roughly every ten years, a new study finds. The results show Californians are now facing a double whammy of increased wildfire and landslide risk caused by climate change-induced shifts in the state's wet and dry seasons, according to researchers who mapped landslide vulnerability in the southern half of the state.
"This is our attempt to get people thinking about where these hazards are going to be before there's even a fire," said Jason Kean, a hydrologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver and lead author ...
HOUSTON - (Feb. 25, 2021) - A new theory by Rice University scientists could boost the growing field of spintronics, devices that depend on the state of an electron as much as the brute electrical force required to push it.
Materials theorist Boris Yakobson and graduate student Sunny Gupta at Rice's Brown School of Engineering describe the mechanism behind Rashba splitting, an effect seen in crystal compounds that can influence their electrons' "up" or "down" spin states, analogous to "on" or "off" in common transistors.
"Spin" is a misnomer, since quantum physics constrains electrons ...
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Graphene is incredibly strong, lightweight, conductive ... the list of its superlative properties goes on.
It is not, however, magnetic -- a shortcoming that has stunted its usefulness in spintronics, an emerging field that scientists say could eventually rewrite the rules of electronics, leading to more powerful semiconductors, computers and other devices.
Now, an international research team led by the University at Buffalo is reporting an advancement that could help overcome this obstacle.
In a study published today in the journal Physical Review Letters, researchers describe how they paired a magnet with graphene, and induced what they describe as "artificial magnetic texture" in the nonmagnetic wonder material.
"Independent of each ...
As climate change increases the occurrence of catastrophic natural disasters around the world, international organizations are looking for ways to reduce the risk of such disasters. One approach under exploration is the humanitarian community's forecast-based early action (FbA), which seeks to enable pre-emptive actions based on forecasts of extreme events.
With FbA, disaster response shifts toward anticipating disasters to ameliorate their destructive effects. However, the development of data-based triggers and metrics for action rely on timely and accurate information. A group of researchers publishing in SPIE's END ...
HOUSTON - (Feb. 25, 2021) - COVID-19 can be diagnosed in 55 minutes or less with the help of programmed magnetic nanobeads and a diagnostic tool that plugs into an off-the-shelf cell phone, according to Rice University engineers.
The Rice lab of mechanical engineer Peter Lillehoj has developed a stamp-sized microfluidic chip that measures the concentration of SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid (N) protein in blood serum from a standard finger prick. The nanobeads bind to SARS-CoV-2 N protein, a biomarker for COVID-19, in the chip and transport it to an electrochemical sensor that detects minute amounts of the biomarker.
The ...
LOS ALAMOS, N.M., February 24, 2021--The Beaufort Sea, the Arctic Ocean's largest freshwater reservoir, has increased its freshwater content by 40 percent over the last two decades, putting global climate patterns at risk. A rapid release of this freshwater into the Atlantic Ocean could wreak havoc on the delicate climate balance that dictates global climate.
"A freshwater release of this size into the subpolar North Atlantic could impact a critical circulation pattern, called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, which has a significant influence on northern-hemisphere climate," ...
After traveling several billion miles toward the Sun, a wayward young comet-like object orbiting among the giant planets has found a temporary parking place along the way. The object has settled near a family of captured ancient asteroids, called Trojans, that are orbiting the Sun alongside Jupiter. This is the first time a comet-like object has been spotted near the Trojan population.
The unexpected visitor belongs to a class of icy bodies found in space between Jupiter and Neptune. Called "Centaurs," they become active for the first time when heated as they approach the Sun, and dynamically transition into becoming more comet-like.
Visible-light snapshots by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveal that the vagabond object shows signs of comet activity, such as a tail, ...
Researchers have discovered that there may be a new pathway in the brain that provides pain relief and reduces cravings for opioids.
Over a third of the U.S. population suffers from chronic pain, with little to no reported relief from medication. Transcranial magnetic brain stimulation (TMS) is a noninvasive form of brain stimulation that may offer a new treatment option for these underserved members of our community.
In a recent paper in Drug and Alcohol Dependence, researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina evaluated two different strategies for relieving pain with TMS: applying TMS to the motor cortex and the ...
When birds see a predator in their midst, one defensive strategy is to call out loudly, attracting other birds of the same or different species to do the same. Sometimes individuals within this "mobbing flock" will fly over or at the predator or attack it directly. Now, researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology on February 25 have found that male superb lyrebirds do something rather unexpected: they imitate a mobbing flock in courtship and even in the act of mating with a female.
"Our paper shows that male superb lyrebirds regularly create a remarkable acoustic illusion of a flock of mobbing birds ...
