How race features in pain-treatment disparities

Researchers from the UK have identified the steroid, dexamethasone, as the first drug to improve survival rates in patients with COVID-19 (National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), 2020). It has also come to light that COVID-19 occurs at a higher frequency in people of minority ethnic backgrounds (Public Health England, 2020). All ethnic minorities appear to be more likely to need intensive care than their white counterparts, and newer data suggest that Asians are most likely to die from COVID-19 than anyone else; in part, this seems a result of the higher rates of diabetes in this population (Harrison et al, 2020).

Donna Kinnair, head of the Royal College of Nursing, and herself no stranger to racism as a black woman living in the UK, points out that patients in black and minority communities have the worst outcomes in almost every category, from cardiovascular disease to diabetes (Kale, 2020). She said in a recent interview with The Guardian (2020):