Five years ago, the state of Minnesota and the rest of the world was experiencing the first weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, we’ve learned people of color experienced a disproportionate burden of COVID-19 cases and deaths. In Minnesota, deaths from COVID-19 were concentrated in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field is the associate director of the Minnesota Population Center and a sociology professor at the University of Minnesota. She is part of a team that published a study looking at the racial disparities in mortality rates from COVID-19 across neighborhoods in Minnesota.

Wrigley-Field joined Dr. Kevin Gilliam, the medical director of NorthPoint Health and Wellness Center in north Minneapolis, to talk about their perspectives on disparities in health care.