I remember when Professor Merlin Chowkwanyun made the above remarks in our Social Determinants of Health class. I remember the unsettling thoughts that raced through my mind; how unfair is it that one’s access to good health is contingent on the color of their skin?
And then, this past April, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams discussed the inequity that African Americans have been facing amidst the coronavirus outbreak. I felt the same unease; race impacts health, and the Coronavirus is just the latest instance of the burden that minorities face in our country. Although prominent figures such as NIAID director Dr. Anthony Fauci, CNN’s chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and even the WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus continue to express that from the perspective of age, COVID-19 is an equal threat to all of humanity and does not discriminate. Yet, the virus does discriminate and it has brought to surface one of the United States’ gravest issues: racial disparities are pervasive in our healthcare system.
Click link to read how Saba Rawjani dives deep into pre-pandemic health disparities in the U.S. and ones that COVID-19 has brought to the forefront.
https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news/virus-discriminates
Saba Rawjani is a 2021 MPH candidate in Health Policy & Management at Columbia University in New York. She received a BS in Neuroscience and Mental Health from Carleton University. She is the president of Bloom Girls Mentoring and is currently interning at the Cleveland Clinic.
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