Article Preview
TopIntroduction
According to the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (2021), health equity is the state where everyone has equitable opportunities for quality care, healthy living conditions, and the level of health education needed to maintain good health. Accomplishing this necessitates enduring societal efforts to:
- 1.
Address historical and current inequalities;
- 2.
Overcome economic, social, and other impediments to good health, quality health care services, and provider access; and
- 3.
Eradicate avertible health disparities.
Health disparities are preventable differences in the burden of disease, injury, violence, or opportunities to achieve optimal health experienced by populations that have been disadvantaged by their social or economic status, geographic location, and environmental conditions (Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 2021).
Taking a closer look at the individuals affected clearly shows a clear lack of equality in the United States. This pandemic has revealed the extent to which health disparities exist in this country (Krieger, 2020). These disparities specifically target racial and ethnic minorities and the death toll for these minorities prove this point. For example, African Americans die from COVID-19 at a rate of 1.5 times higher than the average population (Wood, 2020). This number increases in certain states, such as Missouri, Kansas, Wisconsin, and Michigan (Wood, 2020). Hispanic and Latino populations are also disproportionately affected by COVID-19 in forty-five states (Wood, 2020). Native American and Alaskan Natives are five times more likely to die from COVID-19 in Utah, Montana, New Mexico, and Wyoming (Wood, 2020). These results differ from those of the White, non-Hispanic race. White, non-Hispanic individuals are actually at a lower risk of dying from COVID-19 than their share of the population (Wood, 2020).
New solutions need to be implemented quickly so that these minorities can survive. Tackling implicit bias in healthcare professionals, relying on telemedicine, and strengthening the physician-patient relationship will be crucial solutions in supporting these minority populations and fostering an equal and just healthcare system. Not only will these individual efforts be crucial but taking governmental action will also help underrepresented populations get equal care against COVID -19. Before diving into the individual and societal policies, one must not only first look into how these disparities initially started, but also understand how deeply rooted these disparities run in society.
TopCovid-19 Background
Before diving into the realm of health disparities, a brief background of COVID-19 will help provide one with the status of the pandemic. December 31, 2019 will be a day forever remembered by the world because on this day, the first case of COVID-19 was detected in Wuhan, China (World Health Organization, 2020). At this moment, no one knew that this virus would soon become the center of everyone’s lives.
Less than a month after December 31st, the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in the United States by a man who had recently returned from Wuhan (Taylor, 2021). Other countries were beginning to see COVID-19 infections as well. Thus, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global health emergency on January 30, 2020 with the former president, Donald Trump, restricting travel to China a day later (Taylor, 2021). The hope of this restriction was to prevent the further spread of COVID-19; however, this was no issue for the virus.