Social Equity Amid COVID-19: Examining Health Disparities from the Perspective of Governmental and Social Responsiveness

While racial health disparities have long been studied, the literature has paid insufficient attention to situations such as health emergencies or pandemics and has generated conflicting results regarding some important explanatory variables. This article considers the impact of governmental and social responsiveness on health disparities in a pandemic. The hypotheses are tested with data from Florida's 67 counties in COVID-19. The results indicate that minority representation on local commissions influences local governments’ responsiveness to the disparities, and local government forms moderate the impact of local commission ideology and citizen ideology. The results also show that in counties with greater racial socioeconomic equality, community social capital increases, rather than decreases, the racial disparities. The political participation gap between white and black populations increases the disparities.