"I Can't Breathe": Connecting COVID-19, Protests, and Global Health. (2020) - Sirleaf, Matiangai
Abstract : COVID-19 has exposed the underlying racial hierarchy in the United States and elsewhere. Tragically, one study indicates that Black and Latinx people have COVID-19 mortality rates as much as nine times higher than White people in the United States when age is taken into account. Several commentators have attempted to account for these glaring health disparities by pointing to preexisting health conditions like hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and the higher prevalence of cardiovascular disease among Black people, which can make for greater and more severe and deadly complications with COVID-19. Yet, structural factors ensure that Black people are "more likely to encounter those things that we know compromise health–like inaccessible or biased health care providers, inadequate schools and education systems, unemployment, hazardous jobs, unsafe housing, and violent, polluted communities."