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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,...

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Autores principales: 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
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
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.
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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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