Relationships Among COVID-19 Contraction, Job Loss, and Food Insecurity in American Indian and Alaska Native Peoples

American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) peoples experienced high incidence of COVID-19, but little is known about how contracting COVID-19 affected important economic outcomes like job loss and food insecurity in these populations. In this study, we surveyed AI/AN patients at five geographically diverse urban Tribal health organizations from January to May of 2021 and examined the relationships among infection, job loss, and food insecurity. We found a robust positive association between contracting COVID-19 and probability of job loss, and that job loss was robustly and positively associated with the probability of food insecurity. Our findings suggest that policies meant to protect individuals who contract an illness from economic harms, such as sick leave or pandemic unemployment assistance, were inadequately designed or administered among AI/AN peoples during the COVID-19 pandemic.