Synergistic Disparities and Public Health Mitigation of COVID-19 in the Rural United States

Journal of Bioethical Inquiry 17 (4):649-656 (2020)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Public health emergencies expose social injustice and health disparities, resulting in calls to address their structural causes once the acute crisis has passed. The COVID-19 pandemic is highlighting and exacerbating global, national, and regional disparities in relation to the benefits and burdens of undertaking critical basic public health mitigation measures such as physical distancing. In the United States, attempts to address the COVID-19 pandemic are complicated by striking racial, economic, and geographic inequities. These synergistic inequities exist in both urban and rural areas but take on a particular character and impact in areas of rural poverty. Rural areas face a diverse set of structural challenges, including inadequate public health, clinical, and other infrastructure and economic precarity, hampering the ability of communities and individuals to implement mitigation measures. Public health ethics demands that personnel address both the tactical, real-time adjustment of typical mitigation tools to improve their effectiveness among the rural poor as well as the strategic, longer-term structural causes of health and social injustice that continue to disadvantage this population.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

The COVID-19 containment in Vietnam: What are we doing?Toan Luu Duc Huynh - 2020 - Journal of Global Health 10 (1):010338.
Health Inequalities.Lawrence O. Gostin & Eric A. Friedman - 2020 - Hastings Center Report 50 (4):6-8.

Analytics

Added to PP
2020-11-10

Downloads
4 (#1,426,706)

6 months
2 (#670,035)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?