mmcilwain@sungazette.com
The state Department of Health Office of Operational Excellence and Office of Health Equity have been collaborating with a number of community partners across Pennsylvania to ensure adequate information is being served to a multitude of under-served, marginalized communities through their website, the COVIDAlertPA mobile application, townhalls and campaigns.
According to Brian Lentes, director of the Office of Operational Excellence, studies have shown that a public health crisis like the pandemic can have the potential to have more severe negative effects in underserved, marginalized communities, leading to more severe illnesses and more deaths.
“Longstanding systemic health and social inequities have put many people at an increased risk,” he said.
MALLORIE McILWAIN mmcilwain@sungazette.com
HARRISBURG The state Department of Health Office of Operational Excellence and Office of Health Equity have been collaborating with a number of community partners across the Commonwealth to ensure adequate information is being served to a multitude of under-served, marginalized communities through their website, the COVIDAlertPA mobile application, town halls and campaigns.
According to Brian Lentes, director of the DOH Office of Operational Excellence, studies have shown that a public health crisis like the pandemic can have the potential to have more severe negative effects in underserved, marginalized communities, leading to more severe illnesses and more deaths.
Pennsylvania sets out to tackle disparities highlighted by pandemic triblive.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from triblive.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
UpdatedTue, Mar 16, 2021 at 2:16 pm ET
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Pennsylvania is working on equity issues with the vaccine as it continues its immunization efforts. (Shutterstock)
PENNSYLVANIA Leaders in Pennsylvania touted slow but steady progress in the vaccination effort on Tuesday, addressing the challenges with vaccinating underserved communities and initiatives underway to improve access to doses.
The state received another increase in vaccine shipments this week, with 25,000 more first doses and 16,000 more second doses received this week than last week.
While these numbers still leave the state in a vaccine deficit and unable to presently open up all of the regional community vaccination clinics they would like to they remain optimistic they ll continue to receive more and more each week.
Sam Ruland, York Daily Record
Published
1:40 pm UTC Mar. 9, 2021
About this series: Over the next several weeks, reporters with USA Today s Pennsylvania network will take a look back at the impact COVID-19 has had on the commonwealth over the past year, and what the future holds.
Neighborhoods across the state some lined with million-dollar homes, others by more modest dwellings struggled to survive this year as the coronavirus pandemic uprooted the lives of Pennsylvanians everywhere. But while the unprecedented catastrophe was shared by millions adjusting to their new normal, the suffering was not equally spread.
For low-income Pennsylvanians like Elena, a mother of two without reliable income to pay the bills, surviving the pandemic was made harder by financial and structural imbalances that almost ensure the most marginalized residents bear the heaviest burdens of a public health crisis.