Historical Insights on Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, and Racial Disparities: Illuminating a Path Forward.
Ann Intern Med
; 173(6): 474-481, 2020 09 15.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-535234
ABSTRACT
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is exacting a disproportionate toll on ethnic minority communities and magnifying existing disparities in health care access and treatment. To understand this crisis, physicians and public health researchers have searched history for insights, especially from a great outbreak approximately a century ago the 1918 influenza pandemic. However, of the accounts examining the 1918 influenza pandemic and COVID-19, only a notable few discuss race. Yet, a rich, broader scholarship on race and epidemic disease as a "sampling device for social analysis" exists. This commentary examines the historical arc of the 1918 influenza pandemic, focusing on black Americans and showing the complex and sometimes surprising ways it operated, triggering particular responses both within a minority community and in wider racial, sociopolitical, and public health structures. This analysis reveals that critical structural inequities and health care gaps have historically contributed to and continue to compound disparate health outcomes among communities of color. Shifting from this context to the present, this article frames a discussion of racial health disparities through a resilience approach rather than a deficit approach and offers a blueprint for approaching the COVID-19 crisis and its afterlives through the lens of health equity.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Pneumonia, Viral
/
Coronavirus Infections
/
Racial Groups
/
Influenza, Human
/
Pandemics
Type of study:
Prognostic study
/
Randomized controlled trials
Limits:
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
North America
Language:
English
Journal:
Ann Intern Med
Year:
2020
Document Type:
Article
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