Awakening: The Unveiling of Historically Unaddressed Social Inequities During the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States

Michele P Andrasik; Alika K Maunakea; Linda Oseso; Carlos E Rodriguez-Diaz; Stephaun Wallace; Karina Walters; Michi Yukawa

doi:10.1016/j.idc.2022.01.009

Awakening: The Unveiling of Historically Unaddressed Social Inequities During the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States

Infect Dis Clin North Am. 2022 Jun;36(2):295-308. doi: 10.1016/j.idc.2022.01.009. Epub 2022 Feb 1.

Authors

Michele P Andrasik¹, Alika K Maunakea², Linda Oseso³, Carlos E Rodriguez-Diaz⁴, Stephaun Wallace³, Karina Walters⁵, Michi Yukawa⁶

Affiliations

¹ Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division, Fred Hutchinson, 1100 Eastlake Avenue, E3-300, Seattle, WA 98109, USA. Electronic address: mandrasik@fredhutch.org.
² Department of Anatomy, Biochemistry, and Physiology, John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii, 651 Ilalo Street, BSB-222K, Honolulu, HI 96813, USA.
³ Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division, Fred Hutchinson, 1100 Eastlake Avenue, E3-300, Seattle, WA 98109, USA.
⁴ Department of Prevention and Community Health, Milken Institute School of Public Health, The George Washington University, 950 New Hampshire Avenue NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20052, USA.
⁵ Indigenous Wellness Research Institute, University of Washington, 4101 15th Avenue NE Box 354900, Seattle, WA 98105, USA.
⁶ Division of Geriatrics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94121, USA; Geriatric Palliative and Extended Care, San Francisco VA Medical Center, 490 Illinois Street, Floor 8, UCSF BOX 1265, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA.

Abstract

The violence and victimization brought by colonization and slavery and justified for over a century by race-based science have resulted in enduring inequities for black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) across the United States. This is particularly true if BIPOC individuals have other intersecting devalued identities. We highlight how such longstanding inequities paved the way for the disproportionate burdens of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) among the BIPOC populations across the country and provide recommendations on how to improve COVID-19 mitigation strategies with the goal of eliminating disparities.

Keywords: COVID-19; Disparities; Ethnicity; Inequities; LGBTQ; Race.

Publication types

Review

MeSH terms

COVID-19* / epidemiology
Humans
Pandemics* / prevention & control
United States / epidemiology

Grants and funding

UM1 AI068614/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States