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Keisha Bentley-Edwards and colleagues argue that systemic racism and economic inequality are at the root of disparity in covid-19 outcomes and suggest how to distribute resources more equitably.
The story of covid-19 in the United States is one of many systemic failures to protect its residents from preventable illness and death. Racist stereotypes about disease susceptibility1 were subsequently discredited by the data.2 Covid-19 brought the US to a sobering standoff with race, a social construct that through systemic racism materializes as disparate outcomes (box 1).3 Once testing became available researchers disaggregated and analyzed data along racial lines, providing a more accurate understanding that was unsurprising to anyone who has examined health equity4: covid-19 is a preventable disease that disproportionately affects racial minorities. Although the effects were felt in all racialized communities, they were magnified most powerfully for black, Latino, and indigenous ....
Katherine LeMasters and Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein raise concerns about the lack of sustained change in prison health transparency after covid-19 and implications for future public health crises
People in the jails and prisons across the United States are often housed in abysmal and unlawful conditions that have dire consequences for health.1 From poorly designed built environments (eg, lack of air conditioning, overcrowded dorms) to stressful and unpredictable living quarters, to a lack of quality and timely healthcare, time spent in incarceration worsens peoples’ health.23 In fact, the American Public Health Association considers the current state of incarceration in the US to be a public health crisis.4 Rates of incarceration are high. Although the US contains less than 5% of the global population, it accounts for 20% of the global incarcerated population.5 Furthermore, incarceration disproportionately affects Black, Native American, and Latino people, contributing to racia ....
Building harm reduction into global health security and pandemic prevention bmj.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from bmj.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Michelle Mello and colleagues argue that state legal reforms have generally exacerbated rather than improved weaknesses in US emergency powers revealed by covid-19, jeopardizing future responses
Covid-19 related mortality in the US was higher than in every western European country.1 Compared with its closest neighbour, Canada, also a federated country with a decentralised health system, the US fared far worse.2 With over 1.1 million dead at the end of 2023,3 leaders and academics have begun a painful postmortem. What went wrong, and what can be done to make authorities in the US better equipped for the next pandemic?
In this article, part of a BMJ series examining US covid-19 lessons (http://bmj.com/collections/us-covid-series), we focus on the role of legal infrastructure, including both the law itself and the capacity to wield it effectively.45 A web of federal, state, and local laws determines what officials can do to respond to emergencies. These laws are helpful only ....
Chelsea Cipriano , Kushal Kadakia , and Dave Chokshi argue that the US must end its collective amnesia about public health disasters and act collaboratively to strengthen services
Throughout American history, leaders have stood up in the aftermath of disasters and committed to honoring the past by investing for the future. For example, the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003 led NASA to overhaul its safety culture and attracted new partnerships that are paving the way to America’s return to the Moon.1 Likewise, after a multistate blackout that same year, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation was charged with ensuring nationwide reliability of the power grid through an innovative multistate model of standardized sharing of data, staffing, and resources among power companies.2
Yet when it comes to public health disasters, the US has consistently chosen to forget instead of futureproof. Consider the repeated cuts to core public health agencies and program ....