Authors: Sagal Alisalad, Eliandro Tavares, Tanya Stasio, and Myisha Majumder
February 2021
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has had massive impacts on nearly all aspects of human life—from jobs to food security to healthcare. Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) are disproportionately impacted by this unprecedented health crisis as a result of preexisting socioeconomic and environmental disadvantages. Assistant Researchers Sagal Alisalad and Eliandro Tavares, and Research Assistants Tanya Stasio and Myisha Majumder prepared an AEC policy brief that focuses on the relationship between preexisting racial inequality and the economic and health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this brief, AEC finds a substantial overlap between vulnerability to COVID-19 and vulnerability to climate change. Much like the global climate crisis, some groups, especially Environmental Justice communities, are more likely to bear the brunt of the ongoing health crisis.