Data used to create the Poor People's Pandemic Report
COVID-19 effects on poor communities in the US.
This project aims to explore the disproportionate effects of COVID-19 on poor communities in the US by connecting data about COVID-19 deaths at the county level to other demographic characteristics. In doing so, it offers an initial analysis of the deadly community-level consequences of poverty, economic insecurity, and systemic racism. Poverty here is defined as people living below 200% of the official poverty measure, thereby including both “poor” and “low-income” populations. Although data gaps obscure a more detailed analysis of people directly, combined with other research, these results highlight the characteristics of some of the communities that were most impacted by the pandemic.
For more information on this report, see https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/pandemic-report/.
For an interactive data website, see https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/fee7360f2a5242d5b62a8234da08dcd0.
For data from our other projects, see https://github.com/sdsna and https://www.sdgindex.org/.
Data on COVID-19 deaths was from Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. (2020). COVID-19 Data Repository [Data set]. Johns Hopkins University. Retrieved from https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19/blob/master/README.md in February, 2022.
Demographic data was taken from American Community Survey 2019 5-year estimates in March, 2022, https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs.
Data on vaccination rates was taken from CDC County Vaccination Data, downloaded in March, 2022, https://data.cdc.gov/Vaccinations/COVID-19-Vaccinations-in-the-United-States-County/8xkx-amqh.
A excel of the data displayed in the dashbaord and used in the report, alongside data definitions can be found here. Please note that the COVID-19 data is updated as of February, 2022 and may no longer reflect website data which is updated daily.
Please, see our methodology here.
This report was the joint effort of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, Repairers of the Breach, the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice, and Howard University School of Education. Authors include Jeffrey Sachs (SDSN), Rev. Dr. William Barber, II (Poor People’s Campaign and Repairers of the Breach), Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis (Poor People’s Campaign and the Kairos Center), Alainna Lynch (SDSN), Shailly Gupta Barnes (Poor People’s Campaign and the Kairos Center), Helen Bond (Howard University), Maryam Rabiee (SDSN), Anela Layugan (SDSN) and Laura Nora (SDSN). The authors thank Sarah Patafio, and Gabriel Mayan for their research assistance and the Health Justice Advisory Committee to the Poor People's Campaign for their insights and contributions. Thank you to Sonja Neve (SDSN), Caroline Fox (SDSN) and Tony Eskridge (Kairos Center) for their editorial support.
Publication design and layout by Maryam Rabiee and Anela Layugan from SDSNs SDGs Today (https://sdgstoday.org/)
By downloading the data, you hereby agree to all of the terms specified in this license.
If you have questions, please contact SDSN at info@sdgindex.org.
The views expressed in this report do not reflect the views of any organization, agency or programme of the United Nations. It has been prepared by a team of independent experts of the SDSN Secretariat.
This report has been prepared with the extensive advice and consultation of the SDSN Leadership Council members. Members of the Leadership Council listed serve in their personal capacities, so the opinions expressed in this report may not reflect the opinions of their host institutions. Members are not necessarily in agreement with every detail of this report.