A study of 17 million people in England reveals that older men with previous health issues who are Black or of an ethnic minority background are at a much higher risk of dying from COVID-19. It’s the largest study of its kind, analyzing medical data from over 40% of England’s population.

According to the South China Morning Post, the numbers collected by the British Medical Service showed that mortality rates were linked to being male, older, low income, having diabetes, severe asthma and other medical conditions. But overwhelmingly, the increase in deaths was linked to ethnicity and race.

“Compared to people with white ethnicity, Black and South Asian people were at higher risk, even after adjustment for other factors,” the researchers stated. The researchers said that medical and low-income issues among Black and minority ethnic groups accounted for a small increased risk in COVID-19 deaths, but the greatest risk of dying was due to ethnicity itself.

“People from Black and minority ethnic groups are at increased risk of bad outcomes form COVID-19, for reasons that are unclear,” the researchers said, according to South China Morning Post.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said that members of racial and ethnic minority groups are at increased risk of getting COVID-19 or experiencing severe illness, regardless of age. The CDC offered new data to show that in America, the death rates among Blacks and Hispanic/Latino people are much higher than for white people, in all age categories.

The CDC suggests possible reasons for this disparity include long-standing health and social inequities that have put people of racial and ethnic minority groups at a greater risk of contracting COVID-19 and suffering more severe complications from the disease.