In this week's blog post, we will delve into topics focused on racial and economic inequities in the US evident during this pandemic, written by our co-founder, Pranav Kancherla. All the information talked about in this podcast is from credible sources like American Journal of Managed Care and University of Michigan Health Lab. In the content of COVID, racial disparities have always been existent in health care, but through this pandemic have been seen more clearly. Historically speaking, pandemics have highlighted health inequalities among racial, ethnic mintorical and people from low income backgrounds. As seen through the 2009 H1N1 and 1918 “Spanish” flu pandemic, minorities had higher rates of hospitalization and higher disease induced and all-cause mortality. Despite the viruses ability to infect anyone without discrimination, certain groups have been more affected than others especially when considering certain social determinants of health (including age, race, and economic class). Despite the progression of the 21st century, traces of racism are still evident especially when considering health equity. So, what groups exactly are being affected? African American and Latino Americans. They have faced a disproportionate burden of the effects of COVID-19. They are three times more likely to catch COVID-19 and twice as likely to die from it than white people. Especially when considering these numbers, we already see clear indications that something is going wrong as the wide disparity is quite evident. However, this division only becomes wider as we start to investigate individuals' regions.
So, what are some reasons behind this? Medically speaking, minority groups are more likely to have comorbidities like diabetes, heart disease, asthma, obesity, COPD, hypertension, etc. These diseases put people at risk for COVID fatalities since they can increase the severity of COVID. However, so many other factors contribute this as well. Minorities are more likely to live in crowded urban areas that rely on public transportation and crowded apartments. In fact, Latinos are twice as likely as white people to live in crowded housing. Furthermore, Chicago’s black and hispanic community disproportionately share the burden of the city’s lead toxicity in the soil, old paint, and plumbing Including living situation, residential segregation - a term meant to explain the differential access to certain goods certain areas have - elucidates a huge inconsistency in access to healthy good, green space, and environmental hazards that racial minorities face as opposed to white people. These measures put minorities at more risk for unhealthy exposures and a worse diet, while also affecting social distancing protocol. Speaking of social distancing, minorities are also more likely to work service jobs that are “essential” and more likely to lack sick leave. When looking at the numbers, we see that 43% of blacks and latinos have service jobs versus 25% of whites. Adding on, racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to live near/below the poverty line, and this affects access to health care as well as social distancing since they need to go to work and oftentimes that is outside. A lot of these causes are built into implicit racism and some of these causes are not necessarily preventable either, so we must come together and see what can change and that mostly means addressing racism that continues to affect health care.
Solutions/Conclusions: Ok. Now we know the disparities and some reasons why they occur. But, what can we do about it? Well first thing is that we need comprehensive demographic data from the CDC around race/ethnic groups from past and recent surges. We need studies on the effect of social determinants on health care. But, beyond that, we need to listen and pay attention to the experiences of people from different ethnic with health care. How are they affected, and what inequities did they face? Racism can often be implicit and unseen, so those preferences should be addressed and accounted for. In terms of combating these inherent disparities, organizations that help investigate this dangerous trend including Michigan’s Governor Whitmer’s Community Action Task Force that is now requiring healthcare working to get training to reduce bias and Michigan Medicine’s “Racial Disparities Advisory Committee” are a step in the right direction but by no means a full cure. Widespread testing is needed as well to give a better glimpse into the extent of COVID-19 and knowing what populations to isolate especially in lower income communities. Beyond sufficient screening and targeted resources, social distancing is the best way to combat disparities because that is the only way to mitigate disease transmission. The extent to which communities really abide social distancing guidelines is a good indication of cases/fatality rates. Additionally, people should advocate for education especially at the high school, undergraduate, and graduate levels on the extent of racial disparities. From a political perspective, people should advocate for local, state, and national policy levels for health equity as 3 million Americans remain uninsured especially minorities and should help address the coverage gap for health care. This sounds like a lot, but the first place to start is understand that racism is still an issue and needs to be addressed especially in health care, and by learning and spreading this information to others you are helping end this perilous predicament. So with the advent of vaccines, we must look forward to working on strategies to maximize vaccination rates among minorities and prevent disparities. Hopefully, you enjoyed this article, and I hope that it informed you on the COVID-19 disparities. Please share with friends and family to spread the messages. Bibliography:
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Welcome to our blog, Medquity!Here we will post extra articles on health disparities to display the profound health inequities in our healthcare system. These are updated every other weekend, so check back regularly! Archives
July 2021
CategoriesHealthNeedsRx ©
Copyright 2021 |