Equitable Pandemic Preparedness and Rapid Response: Lessons from COVID-19 for Pandemic Health Equity.

PREVENTION of epidemics; BLACK people; CRITICAL care medicine; EMERGENCY management; EMERGENCY medicine; HEALTH services accessibility; HEALTH status indicators; HOUSING; IMMUNOGLOBULINS; MEDICAL screening; MINORITIES; PERSONAL protective equipment; PRACTICAL politics; RACISM; SOCIAL classes; SOCIAL justice; PATIENT participation; GOVERNMENT aid; CONTACT tracing; FOOD security; HEALTH & social status; COVID-19 pandemic

The novel coronavirus pandemic has set in high relief the entrenched health, social, racial, political, and economic inequities within American society as the incidence of severe morbidity and mortality from the disease caused by the virus appears to be much greater in black and other racial/ethnic minority populations, within homeless and incarcerated populations, and in lower-income communities in general. The reality is that the United States is ill equipped to realize health equity in prevention and control efforts for any type of health outcome, including an infectious disease pandemic. In this article, the authors address an important question: When new waves of the current pandemic emerge, or another novel pandemic emerges, how can the United States be better prepared and also ensure a rapid response that reduces rather than exacerbates social and health inequities? The authors argue for a health equity framework to pandemic preparedness that is grounded in meaningfulcommunity engagement and that, while recognizing the fundamental causes of social and health inequity, has a clear focus on upstream and midstream preparedness and downstream rapid response efforts that put social and health equity at the forefront. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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