Why are Columbia’s Black neighborhoods high risk for COVID-19? What one study says
Residents in several of Columbia’s historically Black neighborhoods face shorter lifespans and greater risk factors for COVID-19, according to a new study from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, a Washington D.C. based non-profit.
“The higher rates of COVID-19 infections and deaths in communities of color have been well documented, but this study gives us a deeper understanding of why,” said Jesse Van Tol, CEO of the coalition. “Historical structural racism created economic and health disparities we see today.”
The study analyzed data from cities across the country and found that several chronic illnesses that lead to a heightened risk of death in COVID-19 patients are more common in lower income and minority neighborhoods.
In Columbia, some of those neighborhoods include Waverly, Celia Saxon, Edgewood, Martin Luther King and Lyon Street. Residents there are more likely to suffer from asthma, diabetes and high blood pressure than those in whiter neighborhoods like Shandon, Rosewood and Elmwood Park.
City Councilwoman Tameika Isaac Devine said the results of the study were disheartening but that she was “not surprised.”
“This is the result of years of disinvestment in communities of color,” she said.
The study, released this week, draws a correlation between modern health disparities and redlining — a set of discriminatory housing practices that barred poor and mainly Black residents in the Jim Crow era from accessing credit and insurance, which kept them in segregated neighborhoods.
The term redlining comes from a series of maps published by the now-defunct federal Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) in the 1920s and 30s. The color-coded maps evaluated “residential security” in different census tracts. In most cases, neighborhoods with large minority populations received the lowest scores and were marked in red.
The study compared data from the HOLC maps with 2018 data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Social Vulnerability Index, a tool used to predict how well a community will be able to respond to human and natural disasters.
It found that many of the redlined neighborhoods from nearly a century ago still have large minority populations and tend to be poorer and more socially vulnerable. On average, life expectancy in redlined communities is 3.6 years lower than in communities that were not redlined.
The 1927 HOLC map of Columbia included six redlined areas. Five of those areas at least partially overlap with current census tracts that displayed a high degree of social vulnerability.
One census tract, which falls between Two Notch Road, Chestnut Street, Harden Street and Taylor Street, almost completely overlaps with one of the original redlined sections of the city. With a vulnerability score of 0.894 out of 0.9, it is one of the most distressed areas in Columbia. It also has one of the highest percentages of minorities in the city at 84.2%. According to the study, residents there have an average life expectancy of 66.9 years. That’s almost 12 years less than the national average.
The one formerly redlined area that received a more moderate social vulnerability score was a census tract that lies between Blossom Street, Pickens Street and Granby Lane along the Congaree River.
Devine said this area, which includes parts of the University of South Carolina campus and Founders Park has seen vast improvements over the years thanks to USC’s presence.
“But that was an area that was gentrified,” she said, meaning the original residents were displaced as new ones came in. “So yes there was investment, but before that happened African American communities were intentionally moved out of the area by the university.”
Devine said she is organizing a series of community forums to discuss the long lasting impact that segregationist policies have had on the city and to come up with potential solutions.
“I think having this data is helpful for us as we work to enact legislation to address historic inequality moving forward,” she said.
This story was originally published September 11, 2020 at 11:50 AM.
