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Local Government Approaches to Combating COVID-19 Inequities: A Durham County Department of Public Health Perspective
When a novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) made major headlines in 2020, it further exposed an existing public health crisis related to inequities within our communities and health care delivery system. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, populations of color had higher infection and mortality rates,...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8296331/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34206993 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18126544 |
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author | Burwell-Naney, Kristen Mortiboy, Marissa Zitta, John-Paul Stevens, Elizabeth Patterson, Kristen Salter, James Christopher Easterling, Michele Bickers Bock, Lindsey Wood, Hattie Rayner, Malkia Jenkins, Rodney |
author_facet | Burwell-Naney, Kristen Mortiboy, Marissa Zitta, John-Paul Stevens, Elizabeth Patterson, Kristen Salter, James Christopher Easterling, Michele Bickers Bock, Lindsey Wood, Hattie Rayner, Malkia Jenkins, Rodney |
author_sort | Burwell-Naney, Kristen |
collection | PubMed |
description | When a novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) made major headlines in 2020, it further exposed an existing public health crisis related to inequities within our communities and health care delivery system. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, populations of color had higher infection and mortality rates, and even experienced greater disease severity compared to whites. Populations of color often bear the brunt of COVID-19 and other health inequities, due to the multifaceted relationship between systemic racism and the social determinants of health. As this relationship continues to perpetuate health inequities, the local health department is an agency that has the jurisdiction and responsibility to prevent disease and protect the health of the communities they serve. When equity is integrated into a health department’s operational infrastructure as a disease prevention strategy, it can elevate the agency’s response to public health emergencies. Collecting, reporting, and tracking demographic data that is necessary to identify inequities becomes a priority to facilitate a more robust public health response. The purpose of this paper is to present strategies of how a local health department operationalized equity in various stages of COVID-19 response and apply these methods to future public health emergencies to better serve vulnerable communities. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8296331 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-82963312021-07-23 Local Government Approaches to Combating COVID-19 Inequities: A Durham County Department of Public Health Perspective Burwell-Naney, Kristen Mortiboy, Marissa Zitta, John-Paul Stevens, Elizabeth Patterson, Kristen Salter, James Christopher Easterling, Michele Bickers Bock, Lindsey Wood, Hattie Rayner, Malkia Jenkins, Rodney Int J Environ Res Public Health Article When a novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) made major headlines in 2020, it further exposed an existing public health crisis related to inequities within our communities and health care delivery system. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, populations of color had higher infection and mortality rates, and even experienced greater disease severity compared to whites. Populations of color often bear the brunt of COVID-19 and other health inequities, due to the multifaceted relationship between systemic racism and the social determinants of health. As this relationship continues to perpetuate health inequities, the local health department is an agency that has the jurisdiction and responsibility to prevent disease and protect the health of the communities they serve. When equity is integrated into a health department’s operational infrastructure as a disease prevention strategy, it can elevate the agency’s response to public health emergencies. Collecting, reporting, and tracking demographic data that is necessary to identify inequities becomes a priority to facilitate a more robust public health response. The purpose of this paper is to present strategies of how a local health department operationalized equity in various stages of COVID-19 response and apply these methods to future public health emergencies to better serve vulnerable communities. MDPI 2021-06-18 /pmc/articles/PMC8296331/ /pubmed/34206993 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18126544 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Burwell-Naney, Kristen Mortiboy, Marissa Zitta, John-Paul Stevens, Elizabeth Patterson, Kristen Salter, James Christopher Easterling, Michele Bickers Bock, Lindsey Wood, Hattie Rayner, Malkia Jenkins, Rodney Local Government Approaches to Combating COVID-19 Inequities: A Durham County Department of Public Health Perspective |
title | Local Government Approaches to Combating COVID-19 Inequities: A Durham County Department of Public Health Perspective |
title_full | Local Government Approaches to Combating COVID-19 Inequities: A Durham County Department of Public Health Perspective |
title_fullStr | Local Government Approaches to Combating COVID-19 Inequities: A Durham County Department of Public Health Perspective |
title_full_unstemmed | Local Government Approaches to Combating COVID-19 Inequities: A Durham County Department of Public Health Perspective |
title_short | Local Government Approaches to Combating COVID-19 Inequities: A Durham County Department of Public Health Perspective |
title_sort | local government approaches to combating covid-19 inequities: a durham county department of public health perspective |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8296331/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34206993 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18126544 |
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