Population Health Research Brief Series

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated health disparities in the United States. While people of color have borne the brunt of lives lost throughout the pandemic, the growth in White deaths from COVID-19 outpaced deaths among other racial/ethnic groups in 2021. 

This research brief shows that approximately 514,000 Americans died of COVID-19 in 2021, a 70 percent increase from 2020. Deaths rose 90 percent among non-Latino Whites between 2020 and 2021, two to three times faster than the rise among racial/ethnic minority groups.