White Americans’ Reactions to Racial Disparities in COVID-19

Abstract

I fielded a survey experiment on a nationally representative sample of 591 white Americans to test whether exposure to information about the disparate impact of COVID-19 on Black people influenced white Americans’ opinion about COVID-19 policies. I found that racially prejudiced white Americans who were exposed to the treatment diminished the importance of wearing a face mask. They also became more supportive of outdoor activities without social distancing guidelines, more likely to perceive shelter-in-place orders as a threat to their individual rights and freedoms, and less likely to perceive African Americans as following social distancing guidelines. Conversely, white Americans who did not endorse an anti-Black stereotype were less likely to perceive shelter-in-place orders as a threat to their individual rights and more likely to perceive African Americans as following social distancing guidelines. These findings highlight that well-intentioned public health campaigns may inadvertently exacerbate existing race-based health disparities.

The Communication of Scientific Information to Scientists, Clinicians, and the Public

“…29,30 News framing of health risks as particularly pertaining to ethnic and racial minority groups has also been shown to decrease support for preventive behaviors among White Americans 31 and for public health policies. 32 As such, well-intentioned efforts to use communication to achieve health equity need to reconsider how—indeed, whether —to present health disparities.…”

Strategic Messaging to Promote Policies that Advance Racial Equity: What Do We Know, and What Do We Need to Learn?

“…These racist responses have been documented across a variety of health and social policy domains, though they appeared most frequently in the context of crime, incarceration, poverty, and unemployment. Although not within the timeframe of this scoping review (which was limited to studies published until April 2021), recent evidence shows that these patterns of racist responses to racial comparisons have persisted in the context of devastating racial inequities in deaths from COVID‐19 106,107 . Several studies suggest that these patterns may be driven by the fact that White respondents default to behavioral (for crime, incarceration, poverty, and unemployment) and/or biological or behavioral (for health) causal attributions for these outcomes and disparities.…”

The role of explanatory context for racial disparities in predicting sociopolitical attitudes during COVID‐19

“…Recent studies have already established that, among prejudiced Whites, exposure to racial disparities reduced concern about the pandemic and support for mitigation policies (Harell & Lieberman, 2021; Stephens‐Dougan, 2022). More worryingly, another study found that white participants who were primed with exposure to the persistence of inequalities underlying racial disparities (vs. not exposed) expressed less concern about COVID‐19 (Skinner‐Dorkenoo et al., 2022).…”

“…Recent studies have already established that, among prejudiced Whites, exposure to racial disparities reduced concern about the pandemic and support for mitigation policies (Harell & Lieberman, 2021;Stephens-Dougan, 2022).…”

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The COVID-19 pandemic placed preexisting racial health disparities in stark relief. Recent studies have already established that, among prejudiced Whites, exposure to such racial disparities reduced concern about the pandemic and support for mitigation policies (Harrel & Lieberman, 2021;Stephens-Dougan, 2022). In response to such results, one cautionary line of reasoning argues that communicating the disparity figures without explanatory context can perpetuate (or at least not undermine) myths that African Americans are more likely to contract COVID-19 due to genetic predispositions or maladaptive behavioral tendencies (Chowkwanyun & Reed, 2020).

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