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DALLAS, May 19, 2021 -- Steps to ensure safety and mitigate the spread of COVID-19 have had some unintended consequences on the management of chronic conditions such as high blood pressure, a leading cause of heart disease and health disparities in the United States. COVID-19 has disproportionately affected people from different racial and ethnic groups, those who are from under-resourced populations and communities that face historic or systemic disadvantages. Discussions and research are ongoing to address what many experts label as long-existing inequities in the U.S. health system, according to information published today in the
"Media coverage has examined how and why COVID-19 is disproportionately impacting communities of color to some degree. However, it is critical that we continue to examine and explain the degree to which the pandemic has widened the divide among race/ethnic and class groups in the U.S. and exposed the systemic and institutional cracks in our health care system in terms of health care equity for people who are under-represented and populations that face disadvantages," said Adam Bress, Pharm.D., M.S., lead author of the paper, an associate professor of population health science in the Division of Health System Innovation and Research at the University of Utah School of Medicine in Salt Lake City and an investigator at the VA Salt Lake City Health Care System. "COVID-19 has also reminded us that when we design interventions, it is important to consider health equity from the beginning rather than as an afterthought."