Battered by the pandemic, communities of color experience sharp drop in life expectancies

Introduction

The News article chosen for this assignment, “Battered by the pandemic, communities of colour experiencea sharp drop in life expectancies,” is a transcript of Dr Reed Tuckson, former Commissioner of Public Health, Washington, D.C, interview published in PBS News Hour on 21st February 2021(Battered by the Pandemic, Communities of Color Experience Sharp Drop in Life Expectancies, 2021).

Summary

Dr. Reed Tucson says that the COVID-19 pandemic has hit African Americans the hardest, leading to an increased number of deaths and hospitalizations. This is attributed to various socio-economic factors such as employment, living conditions, and ongoing health problems, which all contribute to this precarious trend. Individuals of African American origin have a higher susceptibility to the pandemic because of their increased likelihood of being employed in retail, street cleaning, and public transportation occupations. Due to living in densely populated dwellings with multi-generational families and facing restricted availability of nourishing food, they also have challenges in achieving social distancing. Despite repeated calls for better treatment, the healthcare sector continues to provide subpar service to persons of colour in comparison to white Americans. The African American people act in ways that are not always in their best interests because of their inherent distrust in others. Researchers, physicians, policy experts, and the health enterprise, as a whole, must collaborate to dispel this mistrust. This lack of trust is not a passing feeling; it is fatal. A renewed focus on eradicating structural racism and other socio-economic factors that contribute to poor health must be undertaken.

Description of Current Event

Due to different socio-economic factors and disparity in healthcare, the life expectancy of African Americans is the lowest in the United States. The gap in life expectancy between whites and blacks has widened in 2020, the year of the pandemic. For males, the disparity in life expectancy has grown by 7.1 years, whereas for women, it was 4.7 years. This represents an increase of 1.6 years for females and 2.1 years for males (Aburto et al., 2022). The widening disparity between the Caucasian and African American populations was mostly attributed to elevated COVID-19 death rates among those aged 40 and above. In their theory of fundamental causes, Link and Phelan argue that socio-economic stratification is the main driver of health disparities. Stratification in society also occurs along the lines of power and prestige. These systemic social reasons consistently raise stratification by socio-economic status, the concentration of risk factors for illness, and the lack of means to mitigate those risks (Jacob et al., 2017).

These factors together contribute to an inequitable allocation of health-related resources, resulting in inequalities in different health outcomes. African Americans face many obstacles, as well as health disparities, in accessing and receiving health care services. Economic and social factors, such as poverty and food insecurity, have a negative influence on African American people’s health. A higher percentage of African American individuals, as compared to white adults, have experienced racial or ethnic bias while seeking healthcare services for themselves or members of their families. Jones et al. (2019) have shown that social, economic, psychological, and environmental factors gradually affect a common African American’s life, ultimately impacting his or her health behaviour and mental and physical well-being. As a result, both positive and negative social influences experienced by African Americans in their early life, affect their health-related behavior in later years.

Conclusion

African American individuals’ mental and physical health had been hit severely during the pandemic. People who were already at a greater psychological risk and who were already under a lot of stress from the pandemic felt the impacts more acutely. Therefore, it can be said that novel strategies are required to alleviate the consequences of socio-economic determinants of health for African Americans.

References

Battered by the pandemic, communities of color experience sharp drop in life expectancies. (2021, February 18). PBS NewsHour. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/battered-by-the-pandemic-communities-of-color-experience-sharp-drop-in-life-expectancies

Aburto, J. M., Schöley, J., Kashnitsky, I., Zhang, L., Rahal, C., Missov, T. I. & Kashyap, R.

(2022). Quantifying impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic through life-expectancy losses: a population-level study of 29 countries. International journal of epidemiology, 51(1), 63-74.

Jacob, C. M., Baird, J., Barker, M., Cooper, C., & Hanson, M. (2017). The importance of a life-

course approach to health: chronic disease risk from preconception through adolescence and adulthood: white paper. World Health Organization

Jones, N. L., Gilman, S. E., Cheng, T. L., Drury, S. S., Hill, C. V., &Geronimus, A. T. (2019).

Life course approaches to the causes of health disparities. American journal of public health, 109(S1), S48-S55.