Abstract

The Afro-Mexican population has been little studied from a quantitative perspective in terms of health events, due to methodological difficulties in identifying them. As a result, most studies in this area have been ethnographic. The 2020 Census of Population and Housing in Mexico provided, for the first time, demographic information at the census level on the Afro-Mexican population, identified by the principle of self-identification. The objective of this paper is to analyse the impact of life expectancy (LE) on the Afro-Mexican population, controlling for the marginalisation index and the population without access to health services, in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic in Mexico in 2020. Information on the Afro-Mexican population, mortality and population was obtained from official sources. LE were calculated using the standard actuarial method. The Afro-Mexican population represented a small proportion of the total population of Mexico. The largest proportions of this population were concentrated in the coastal states of Oaxaca and Guerrero, and to a lesser extent in Veracruz and Yucatan. This population tended to be distributed in low-density communities and was therefore subject to the socio-economic and demographic constraints of rural or semi-urban populations. These characteristics were reflected in a lower impact on losses in LE years, as the dynamics of the Covid-19 pandemic tended to be lower in low-density populations. This effect was not due to the African population per se, but because it shares the characteristics of the rural and semi-urban populations in Mexico.

Keywords:
Afro-Mexican population; life expectancy; marginalization index; municipalities; Mexico