Counties with higher proportions of Black or Hispanic residents also had higher rates, the study found, reinforcing earlier research showing the disparate effects of the virus on those communities. The findings, published last week by JAMA Network Open, were based on county-level data for all 50 states and Washington, D.C. Data sources included the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USAFacts and the U.S. Census Bureau. The lead author of the study, Tim Liao, head of the sociology department at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, initiated the study last summer after noticing that economic inequality - a focus of his research for more than 15 years -