This Is America: Systemic Racism and Health Inequities Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

The Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) continues to devastate the world and the United States remains number one of reported COVID-19 cases and deaths. Research demonstrates that Blacks and Hispanics in the United States are disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, especially among highly marginalized people at the intersection of immigration and incarceration. Social distancing is a privilege and contact tracing is a deterrent for historically oppressed populations. Public health professionals have attempted a multicausal approach to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, but they have been unsuccessful in addressing the biological-social impact of highly vulnerable populations. An emphasis is placed on syndemics and social determinants of health to address health inequities associated with COVID-19 due to systemic racism. Implications for social work will reinforce the profession’s obligation to address public emergencies through social and political action. Recommendations will be made for social workers to support local, state, and federal level responses of COVID-19.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• systemic racism
• health inequities
• social determinants of health
• syndemics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The author acknowledges that race is a social construct and social structures impose labels on populations into broad monolithic racial/ethnic categories (Witzig, 1996). This manuscript will use categories commonly used in the literature such as Black to take into consideration people from the Black diaspora and Hispanic to take into consideration people from the Latin American diaspora.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.