COVID-19 deaths among working age California Latinos skyrocket over three-month period

Deaths from coronavirus among working-age Latinos in California have increased nearly five-fold in the past three months, according to research released today by professors at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

Research by Professors David Hayes-Bautista and Paul Hsu showed the increase in death rates in all Latino age groups: young adult, early middle age and late middle age.

"In the early days of the pandemic, we worried about the skyrocketing death rate for the elderly," Hayes-Bautista, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health (FSPH) professor of health policy and management and distinguished professor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, said. "Now the virus is falling on the working-age population, and the young Latino population is disproportionately represented in this demographic."

COVID-19: Rep. Raul Ruiz joins Jill Biden in virtual summit on impact on Latinos

The virus and the vulnerable: Latino children suffer higher rates of COVID-19

The professors used data furnished by the California Department of Public Health on COVID-19 deaths between May 11 and Aug. 11, arranged by ethnicity and age group.

For Latino adults ages 18 to 38, including college students and recent graduates, the death rate was low, but its rate of growth — 473% — was "alarming," the professors said.

In the early middle age category, ages 35 to 49, the death rate went up by 386%, their research showed.

The death rate for late middle-aged Latinos, ages 50 to 69, spiked by 471% over the three-month period. At 54.73 deaths per 100,000, the death rate among this age group is nearly 25 times higher than the young adult rate of 2.12 and nearly four times higher than the early middle-aged rate of 14.23, said Hayes-Bautista and Hsu, assistant professor of epidemiology at Fielding School of Public Health and co-author of the report.

Their research determined the virus is taking a high toll on Latino adults in their peak earning years.

"Anything that threatens the stability of our economy, like COVID-19's inroads into the working-age population, needs to be taken seriously," Hayes-Bautista said.

The report, "COVID-19: Associated Deaths in Working-Age Latino Adults," is published by the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture (CESLAC), part of UCLA Health.