National Medical Association President Dr. Leon McDougle (Courtesy photo)
Vermont Business Magazine Consistent with a history that is rife with medical discrimination and abuse against Black people, the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected BIPOC communities in the U.S., who are disproportionally employed as essential workers. Now, as vaccines are distributed to specific populations in phases, concerns are rising that this health disparity gap may widen. On Wednesday, January 20, Leon McDougle, MD, MPH, president of the National Medical Association, will address health care inequities as the Keynote Speaker for the University of Vermont s annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration.
Top doc tackles racial disparities in health as MLK Keynote Speaker National Medical Association President Dr. Leon McDougle to address racial inequities in health care, from slavery to COVID.
Consistent with a history that is rife with medical discrimination and abuse against Black people, the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected BIPOC communities in the U.S., who are disproportionally employed as essential workers. Now, as vaccines are distributed to specific populations in phases, concerns are rising that this health disparity gap may widen. On Wednesday, January 20, Dr. Leon McDougle, MD, MPH, president of the National Medical Association, will address health care inequities as the Keynote Speaker for the annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration.
Jason Garza for The Texas Tribune
Originally published on December 23, 2020 9:25 am
When Julieta Hernandez began hearing the first rumblings about a COVID-19 vaccine soon arriving in Texas, the Rockport writer and bartender had no doubts that she would get her shot when her time came.
And then she sat down to breakfast with her vegetarian parents, lifelong believers in homeopathic treatments with a deep skepticism for vaccines and mistrust in the government.
“You’re not planning on getting that, are you?” they asked her.
Now, Hernandez, 22, is on the fence, feeling guilty because she knows “it’s the right thing to do” but wanting to trust her parents and her own naturalistic upbringing.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
toggle caption Spencer Platt/Getty Images
A Hasidic man and medical workers cross paths near the Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., in November. When public health messaging comes from community leaders, it s much more likely to be adopted, research on diverse groups finds. Spencer Platt/Getty Images
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services booked an unusual guest interviewer for one of its public health events this fall: Shulem Lemmer, the first Hasidic singer to sign with a major record label.
Lemmer has no particular expertise in public health, but he grew up in Brooklyn, home to many ultraorthodox Jews like himself. He s seen as a trusted messenger in parts of the Hasidic community that, despite suffering a disproportionate number of hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19, have on some occasions resisted New York s pandemic restrictions.