Comparative Color Intensity
How to use this map
This map is a refined version of the Comparative Mortality (Heat Map) and uses colorized circles to visualize intensity in those counties with the highest mortality rates. Unlike the Comparative Mortality (Heat Map), however, the color intensities do not represent mortality clusters, but rather, the intensity of individual county mortality rates like the Comparative Mortality (Choropleth) map.
This map’s “Black Mortality Rate Range” is preset to narrow down the visualization to only those counties where African-American mortality rates were highest. Interact with the “Black” and “White” Mortality Rate Range bars to the right of the map to expand the counties included in the visualization or narrow them further.
What does this map reveal?
North-central Florida between Tallahassee, Jacksonville, and Gainesville appear to have exhibited the worst African-American mortality rate clusters, maintaining high mortality down the center of the state to Tampa and Orlando. In most counties, the African-American mortality rate was double the white rate.
Sometimes African-American mortality rates were astronomical. In Osceola County, indicated by the deep red circle underneath Orlando in the above screenshot, the white mortality rate was 2.3 deaths per 1,000 persons, while the African-American mortality rate was 10.6 deaths per 1,000 persons. We don’t entirely understand why persons of color in Osceola County suffered such high mortality rates there, but rurality and poverty may have played a role in creating conditions conducive for high mortality.
The county with the highest white mortality rate was Duval County (7.2 per 1,000) while the county with the highest African-American mortality rate was Osceola County (10.6 per 1,000).
Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph workers from Jacksonville pose for a photo during the pandemic. North-central Florida appears to have suffered the highest mortality rates outside of the major cities like Tampa and Pensacola. Courtesy of Florida Memory.