NJHA: Data Shows COVID-19’s Impact on N.J.’s Communities of Color


New Jersey’s communities of color are experiencing disproportionate impacts of COVID-19 in diagnosis rates and mortality rates, according to an analysis from the Center for Health Analytics, Research and Transformation (CHART) at the New Jersey Hospital Association.

NJHA’s analysis, based on hospital discharge data, shows that Asian and Hispanic individuals have higher age-adjusted diagnosis rates, while black patients have the highest age-adjusted mortality rate.

Age-adjusted diagnosis rates by race/ethnicity and gender showed:

  • Asians had the highest age-adjusted diagnosis rate, at 25.7 per hundred population for males and 21.3 per hundred population for females.
  • Hispanics had the second-highest age-adjusted diagnosis rate, at 20.3 per hundred population for males and 17.6 per hundred for females.

The most impacted communities differ when examining those with the highest age-adjusted COVID-19 mortality rate. The analysis showed:

  • Black New Jerseyans have the highest COVID-19 age-adjusted mortality rate of 8.4 per hundred population for males and 7.4 per hundred population for females
  • White patients followed, with a 7.9 per hundred population mortality rate for males and 5.7 per hundred population for females.
  • Hispanics had the third highest COVID-19 mortality rate, at 7.8 per hundred population for males and 5 per hundred population for women.

“The data reported by hospitals daily throughout the COVID-19 outbreak has provided glimpses of this problem, but CHART’s deeper analysis helps us learn much more about the outsized impact on our communities of color,” said Cathy Bennett, president and CEO of the New Jersey Hospital Association. “This data is a valuable starting point for us to better understand the impact of this virus – and potentially other novel viruses – for improved planning, surveillance and response in future outbreaks.”

The data was drawn from patient records submitted by hospitals through the New Jersey Hospital Discharge Data Collection System. The data contains 75,895 discharges submitted as of April 1, 2020, of which 12,581 were identified as COVID-19 cases.