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In an editorial for the American Journal of Public Health, CUNY SPH Adjunct Associate Professor J. Robin Moon and Amanda Falick Ascher of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine say that, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the U.S. healthcare system needs to be reoriented. The following is an excerpt:
Currently, our system is driven by hospital-based health care, a semiprivatized economy that feeds on structural inequity and inequitable distribution of consumer technology. We must take this opportunity to examine our current unbalanced, inequitable public health and health care system and build and bolster a community-based care structure in a holistic, humane, and equitable way.
COVID-19 is not spreading over a level playing field, nor do affected individuals recover and sustain equitably. By highlighting the most vulnerable spots in our community, the pandemic underscores new opportunities for longer term preparation to prevent further deepening of health inequities. Some of these “new” opportunities are not actually new but have seen chronic underinvestment. Our marginalized communities have not observed meaningful investment in their health and wellbeing. This pandemic may be due to a novel virus, but curtailing the prolonged human-made disaster of inadequately addressing our marginalized communities’ needs is in our control.
Read the full editorial here.
