#OnTargetPrepardness

[sedmonds]

Macro-post #2

In my last post, I shared that my practicum group was investigating the population of Hispanics in rural counties across North Carolina to the Hispanic population infected with the coronavirus. We decided to dig a little deeper and discovered the top industries in those communities, which helped us create our final hypothesis. In the beginning, we hypothesized "the high rates of COVID-19 cases amongst the Hispanic/Latinx communities were due to language barriers, harsh working conditions that prevent proper social distancing and more." Our previous hypothesis was almost accurate. We noticed that many rural counties experiencing the rates of cases were all highly economically driven by industries like manufacturing, agricultural, retail, and construction. We identified those four industries repeatedly as the most common industries and most specialized for citizens in those counties. After reading several articles, we learned that many Hispanic farmworkers often work in the heat and decide to wear a mask properly or inhale fresh air. The touching of their facial mask repeatedly after often using the same equipment as their co-workers could be dangerous. They are potentially increasing their exposure to the virus. This is the same for retail and manufacturing workers. Due to their work conditions, it makes it difficult for them to follow the CDC guidelines properly. We also feel that the policies are not heavily enforced by management for many reasons. As stated in my previous post, we selected a total of 30 counties across North Carolina, which all had different populations. In a screenshot from our group's document, you can see the highlight counties that we believed had a significantly more significant percentage of Hispanic COVID-19 cases than the Hispanic/Latinx population in that county. There was s total of 9 counties that we highlighted. In our next step, we added an asterisk to some of the already highlighted counties so that the counties with severe or extreme cases could stand out as we continue analyzing. We concluded that the impact of COVID-19 cases within the Hispanic population was a statewide problem, not just Harnett County. Personally, there are other rural counties with more tremendous hardships that Hartnett County from the data we collected. Next, we wanted to know more about each county, such as the industries driving these counties, which could potentially explain the reasons for the high cases. We created a chart to list all the significant counties from the previous step described above, identified economic industries most common in those counties, most specialized industries, and the highest paying jobs. We discovered that manufacturing, construction, agriculture, and retail were common industries. These industries environments can make it challenging to social distances because these are jobs that do not have the option to virtually complete. Therefore, making social distancing difficult. Additionally, the working conditions make it hard to wear a mask to prevent the spread of germs faithfully. As a result, the nature of these jobs makes it hard to wear proper PPE. From the data collected, we concluded that the employment of Hispanics could be a significant cause of higher cases within their population. Initially, we hypothesized that their living conditions were a significant cause of the high cases of COVID-19. However, according to Census, Michelle did some more research, the average number of members per household for the selected counties were 2-3 people, which altered our belief. Maybe their living conditions were not that great of an issue compared to their employment. Although employment is essential, we found other factors as well. Language barriers are an issue for rural Hispanics seeking healthcare access or public health information; thus, it is not different in the case of COVID-19.