Yesterday, the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center launched new maps and data tracking the impact of COVID-19 in American Indian and Alaska Native communities.
The maps, developed by the Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health in collaboration with Indian Country Today, show the disparate impact the pandemic has had on Tribal communities.
According to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Indians and Alaska Natives are at the highest risk of hospitalization and death from COVID-19 among all races and ethnicities.
American Indian or Alaska Native individuals are 3.5 times more likely to be hospitalized and 2.4 times more likely to die from the virus than White, non-Hispanic people.
While American Indian and Alaska Native communities have experienced some of the highest rates of COVID-19 in the country, there is a gap in publicly accessible data that monitors the pandemic in Native communities.
In Maryland, the state website for COVID-19 does not display cases and deaths among American Indians and Alaska Natives.
Although there are more than 120,000 people in the state who identify as Native American, the Maryland Department of Health puts Native people in the “Other” category, effectively erasing the population from COVID-19 data.
The Baltimore City COVID-19 dashboard added “American Indian or Alaska Native” as a category in July 2020, after the Baltimore City Health Department received a request to begin publishing cases and deaths among Native people.
The new maps by Johns Hopkins, which display COVID-19 data across more than 100 Tribal Nations, aim to close the gap in coverage.
The maps are updated regularly with publicly available information provided by Tribes, such as social media posts and Tribally run websites.
Data for the maps is not fully inclusive of all American Indian and Alaska Native communities, as it is limited to federally recognized Tribal Nations in the continental U.S. and Alaska Village lands.
