Comparison ofWeighted and Unweighted Population Data to Assess Inequities in Coronavirus Disease 2019 Deaths by Race/Ethnicity Reported by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Abstract

Surveillance and mortality data show large inequities in the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) by race/ethnicity.1 Currently, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does not report mortality rates by race/ethnicity. Instead, the percentage distribution of COVID-19 deaths by race/ethnicity is presented alongside a weighted distribution of the population from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics,2 which weights each county’s population by its share of COVID-19 deaths, not population (Figure).We investigated whether the resulting magnitude of inequities using the weighted population underestimates those observed using the total population (unweighted).