The Economic Burden of Racial, Ethnic, and Socioeconomic Health Inequities

Table 1 from the Racial and Ethnic Health Report.

• Abbreviations: BRFSS, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System; MEPS, Medical Expenditure Panel Survey; NVSS, National Vital Statistics System.
• Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander samples in the MEPS for age-sex cohorts were too small to compute estimates for medical care spending and labor market productivity.
• Because the study primarily focuses on the burden of health inequities for racial and ethnic minorities, state-level estimates were not computed for the White population using the BRFSS.

Table 2 from the Racial and Ethnic Health Report. The bar graph is a visual representation of each number for purposes of comparison.

To compute excess medical care costs and lost labor market productivity, the authors computed states level estimates for 50 states and the District of Columbia (DC). State level prevalence rates for each race and ethnic group were computed using data from the 2016-2019 BRFSS. These rates were used to simulate medical care costs and labor market outcomes adjusting for age, gender, race, marital status, insurance status, education, family income, health status, health conditions and census regions of the country). Excess premature death costs were computed for each state and DC using state level data from National Vital Statistic System. GDP by states are published by The Bureau of Economic Analysis.

• Abbreviations: BRFSS, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System; MEPS, Medical Expenditure Panel Survey; NVSS, National Vital Statistics System.
• Per-capita costs for each racial and ethnic group were computed by dividing the total economic loss for that group by the total population of each racial and ethnic group within their respective state.
• State-level estimates for the White population were not computed because the study focused on burden of health inequities for racial and ethnic minority populations. The national per-capita estimate for the White population based on the MEPS estimate was $3098.

Table 3 from the Socioeconomic Health Report.

• Abbreviations: BRFSS, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System; MEPS, Medical Expenditure Panel Survey; NVSS, National Vital Statistics System.
• State-level estimates for adults with 4-year college or more were not computed because the study focuses on burden of health inequities for adults with lower educational attainment.

Table 4 from the Socioeconomic Health Report. The bar graph is a visual representation of each number for purposes of comparison.

• Per-capita costs were computed by dividing populations of each education group for adults older than 25 years.
• State-level estimates for adults with 4-year college or more were not computed because the study focuses on burden of health inequities for adults with lower educational attainment. The US per-capita estimate for adults with a 4-year college degree was $514.

Table 5 compares data from both the Racial and Ethnic Health Report and the Socioeconomic Health Report.

• The “Racial and ethnic health inequities” totals do not compute state-level estimates for the White population and adults with 4-year college or more because the study focuses on burden of health inequities for disadvantaged populations.
• The “Education-related health inequities” fields are divided by the 2018 gross domestic product for each states and the nation, which are published by The Bureau of Economic Analysis.