Study: Minorities More Likely Than Whites To Wear Mask, Know Someone With The Coronavirus
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MARK BRODIE: It wasn't so long ago that the idea of wearing a face mask in public would have seemed ludicrous. But today, as the coronavirus pandemic rages on, those who are willing to don the coverings and those who aren't has become a political hot potato. President Trump, for his part, won't wear one in public. Neither has anyone spotted Gov. Doug Ducey wearing one. And on the other side of the aisle, presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden and his wife made a point to wear black coverings over their mouths and noses as they attended a Memorial Day ceremony a few weeks back. But our next guest's research shows the divide goes beyond the political. Edward Vargas is an assistant professor in ASU's School of Transborder Studies, and he's part of a new study that looks at how people of different ethnic backgrounds have changed their behavior during the pandemic. Our co-host Lauren Gilger spoke with him more about it.
EDWARD VARGAS: Right when we were starting to see cases rise, you know, we gathered a team together and said, "Hey, let's go into the field and start following Americans through this pandemic." So it became kind of a natural experiment about what Americans and how we're grappling and dealing with things like following CDC orders and guidelines.
LAUREN GILGER: OK, so we've heard that wearing a mask has become political. Break those numbers down for us though. What did you find here?
VARGAS: Yeah. So, you know, wearing a mask and the tensions around wearing a mask, we're seeing different things across the country. We're seeing places like in Stillwater, Oklahoma, where there were threats of physical violence and verbal abuse to store employees for wearing a mask. In Flint, Michigan, there was a security guard that was shot after telling customers to wear masks. So, we're beginning to see this play out in the public, right? And so what we're finding, particularly looking at partisan breakdown, we see that, for example, Democrats are 10 percentage more likely to wear a scarf or a mask in public to to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. So, for example, Democrats, 75% of them said yes where, for Republicans, 65 percent said yes. So, again, a 10% difference in wearing a mask. You know, interestingly, we're also able to code in contextual data about states and their governor's party and when, and we're finding that individuals who are actually in a Republican run state, they're less likely to wear a mask.
GILGER: Interesting. So you also dug into another layer of this, though. You also broke this down by race, which had some really interesting results. Can you tell us what you found there?
VARGAS: Yeah. So when we broke it down by race, we see that whites are the least likely to wear a mask in public to stop the spread of the coronavirus where Asian Americans were the most likely. And what's interesting about this breakdown, because we also followed up with the question that asked, do you feel that you are being criminalized when wearing a mask?
GILGER: Yes.
VARGAS: Or scarf. And that's really interesting, particularly the interaction or intersection of gender and race, where we see that, for example, minority men, Latino, black and Asian are the most likely to feel criminalized. Again, racial and ethnic minorities are most likely to wear masks. And they're also most likely to feel criminalized for wearing a mask.
GILGER: That is so interesting. So it seems true, in general, that what you found so far in this study, minorities were much more likely to shift their behavior because of the pandemic overall. What do you think might be behind this? Is this to do with, you think, the fact that we've seen this pandemic play out in, you know, in unequal ways across demographics?
VARGAS: That's right. When we look at a measure that we call sort of proximal contact with the COVID-19, in other words, knowing somebody in your network, either you having it, someone in your immediate family, someone at work, or just somebody you personally know outside of your outside your family work, we see that that racial and ethnic minorities are most likely to know somebody who has the coronavirus. We're seeing some large differences and a lot of this, we believe, is being uncovered just by your your contact with other individuals who have the coronavirus.
GILGER: So, I know this is ongoing. You're going to enter the next phase of the study here. What are you looking at going forward as this pandemic continues?
VARGAS: So, we're going to continue to track mask, wearing of mask and sort of guidelines, particularly trying to uncover why people aren't wearing a mask. And if those who do wear a mask, I think there's this really interesting question about are you wearing this mask to protect yourself, to protect others, or for both. And I think that as we want to move forward towards public health interventions, we have to uncover some of these underlying views or thoughts about the process of wearing a mask or wearing a mask. As we know, this is going to be a culture change for us here in the United States. We're going to be covering the health impacts of coronavirus, particularly the mental health and physical health of Americans. We're also going to be focused on relationship, sort of romantic relationships among folks during this time and then how the pandemic is impacting families and children in particular.
GILGER: Alright. Lots to look for there. I'm sure we'll be in touch soon. That is Edward Vargas, assistant professor with ASU School of Transborder Studies, telling us about his new study that looks at the way behaviors have shifted since this pandemic began. Edward, thank you so much for the time today.
VARGAS: I'm honored. Thank you for having me.
