LOS ANGELES (CNS) - Deaths from coronavirus among working-age Latinos in California have increased nearly five-fold in the past three months, according to research released Thursday by professors at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

Research by Professors David Hayes-Bautista and Paul Hsu showed the increase in death rates in all Latino age groups: young adult, early middle age and late middle age.

What You Need To Know

  • Coronavirus death among working-age Latinos in CA have increased five-fold since late May

  • Death rates have increased among young adult, early and late middle age Latinos

  • Findings were reached based on data from CA Dept. of Pubic Health

  • The findings were published in a report by CESLAC

"In the early days of the pandemic, we worried about the skyrocketing death rate for the elderly,"  Hayes-Bautista, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health (FSPH) professor of health policy and management and distinguished professor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, said. "Now the virus is falling on the working-age population, and the young Latino population is disproportionately represented in this demographic."

The professors used data furnished by the California Department of Public Health on COVID-19 deaths between May 11 and August 11, arranged by ethnicity and age group.

For Latino adults ages 18-38, including college students and recent graduates, the death rate was low, but its rate of growth -- 473 percent-- was "alarming," the professors said.

In the early middle age category, ages 35-49 , the death rate went up by 386 percent, their research showed.

The death rate for late middle-aged Latinos, ages 50-69, spiked by 471 percent over the three-month period. At 54.73 deaths per 100,000, the death rate among this age group is nearly 25 times higher than the young adult rate of 2.12 and nearly four times higher than the early middle-aged rate of 14.23, said Hayes-Bautista and Hsu, assistant professor of epidemiology at Fielding School of Public Health and co-author of the report.

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Their research determined the virus is taking a high toll on Latino adults in their peak earning years.

"Anything that threatens the stability of our economy, like COVID- 19's inroads into the working-age population, needs to be taken seriously," Hayes-Bautista said.

The report, "COVID-19: Associated Deaths in Working-Age Latino Adults," is published by the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture (CESLAC), part of UCLA Health