The pandemic’s devastating impact on communities of color clarifies the need for diversity among healthcare workers and public health leaders.
“We live in a country where your wealth and your socioeconomic status is a big determinant for how healthy you are, how long you will live and whether you live with a higher burden of disease while you’re alive,” says Dr. Denis Nash, an epidemiologist and executive director of the City University of New York Institute for Implementation Science in Population Health (ISPH).
While many people can work from home, Nash notes that communities of color and poor working class communities are often the people who go to work every day. Some work in healthcare settings and others are “essential workers” employed at grocery stores and pharmacies. In major cities, they likely ride public transportation to and from work.
Nash says it is crucial that medical schools and schools of public health acknowledge these fundamental problems in American society and either address them or mitigate their impact.
“We need a more diverse public health workforce to be successful in those efforts,” says Dr. Angela J. Beck, assistant dean for student engagement and practice and clinical assistant professor of health behavior and health education at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. “This means finding ways to strengthen the workforce pipeline by recruiting a more diverse group of students and then retaining them in public health practice after they graduate.”
COVID-19 impact on communities of color
