Tag: Race

Miami Downtown, FL, USA - MAY 31, 2020: Woman leading a group of demonstrators on road protesting for human rights and against racism.

Intentional Commitments to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion Needed in Health Care

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Eloho E. Akpovi

“They told me my baby was going to die.” Those words have sat with me since my acting internship in OB/GYN last summer. They were spoken by a young, Black, pregnant patient presenting to the emergency room to rule out preeclampsia.

As a Black woman and a medical student, those words were chilling. They reflect a health care system that is not built to provide the best care for Black patients and trains health care professionals in a way that is tone-deaf to racism and its manifestations in patient care.

Read More

Bill of Health - A worker gives directions as motorists wait in lines to get the coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine in a parking lot at Dodger Stadium, Friday, Jan. 15, 2021, in Los Angeles, covid vaccine distribution

Can Vaccine Allocation Plans Legally Respond to Racial Disparities?

Govind Persad Leave a comment

By Govind Persad

Recently, Missouri expanded phase 2 vaccination eligibility with the goal of addressing disproportionate COVID-19 impacts.

Specifically, Missouri’s policy applies to “Disproportionately Affected Populations,” which is further defined as: “Populations at increased risk of acquiring or transmitting COVID-19, with emphasis on racial/ethnic minorities not otherwise included in 1B.”

This presents a much-debated and often misunderstood question I explore in a forthcoming University of Illinois Law Review article: can COVID-19 vaccine allocation legally recognize the outsized burden of cases and deaths that racial/ethnic minority communities have borne during the pandemic?

Read More

Doctor Holding Cell Phone. Cell phones and other kinds of mobile devices and communications technologies are of increasing importance in the delivery of health care. Photographer Daniel Sone.

Providing Cancer Care in the Age of COVID-19

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Samyukta Mullangi, Johnetta Blakeley, and Stephen Schleicher

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought many challenges to oncology care; an area of medicine that typically involves frequent, in-person patient visits to complete a course of treatment.

In many ways, COVID-19 has served as a stress test for the specialty, and has catalyzed adaptive changes that we hope will make the oncology care, and the health care system in general, more resilient going forward.

Read More

Oxygen mask as part of artificial lungs ventilation machine in surgery room, closeup.

Pandemic Highlights Need for Quality and Equity in End-of-Life Care

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Elizabeth Clayborne

I was a little less than six months pregnant when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020. As an Emergency Physician, I am well aware of additional risks that my job often exposes me to on a daily basis. We frequently face physical and emotional strife from unstable psychiatric patients, critically ill nursing home residents, sexual assault victims, and newly diagnosed cancer patients.

People who work in an emergency department tend to understand what comes with the territory: a lot of hard work, unexpected outcomes, and daily traverses of the human experience, from the best emotions you can imagine, to lowest depths of human despair. This is what accompanies caring for every ailment for people from all walks of life. I actually love this part about my job! I never know what I’m going to see when I walk through the doors.

That said, being a frontline physician during COVID-19 has provided me with a profoundly different lens on the pressures surrounding health care workers. And experiencing this while pregnant was pretty terrifying.

Read More

Motherboard, Reverse Detail: This is a green motherboard, photographed with red-gelled flashes.

The Future of Race-Based Clinical Algorithms

Jenna Becker Leave a comment

By Jenna Becker

Race-based clinical algorithms are widely used. Yet many race-based adjustments lack evidence and worsen racism in health care. 

Prominent politicians have called for research into the use of race-based algorithms in clinical care as part of a larger effort to understand the public health impacts of structural racism. Physicians and researchers have called for an urgent reconsideration of the use of race in these algorithms. 

Efforts to remove race-based algorithms from practice have thus far been piecemeal. Medical associations, health systems, and policymakers must work in tandem to rapidly identify and remove racist algorithms from clinical practice.

Read More

Grocery store.

How Restrictions on SNAP Harm Health

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Molly Prothero

One of President Biden’s earliest actions in office was to sign an executive order asking Congress and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to expand the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP).

President Biden proposed that Congress extend the 15% SNAP benefit increase, originally passed in late December. Biden’s executive order also directed the USDA to issue new guidance documents enabling states to increase SNAP allotments in emergency situations and update the Thrifty Food Plan, the basis for determining SNAP benefits, to better reflect the cost of a nutritious diet today.

President Biden’s actions stand in sharp contrast to Trump, who sought to limit the reach of SNAP benefits during his time in office. In December 2019, Trump’s USDA issued a final rule restricting SNAP eligibility for unemployed adults without dependents.

Read More

Gavel and a house on a white background. Concept art for eviction.

Why Biden’s Extension of the Eviction Moratorium Isn’t Enough

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Molly Prothero

On President Joe Biden’s first day in office, he signed an executive order calling on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to extend its federal eviction moratorium through March 2021.

But this action protects only a subset of tenants who meet specific qualifications and, crucially, know to fill out a CDC Affidavit and submit it to their landlords. And despite skyrocketing COVID-19 case counts, most state eviction moratoriums have now lifted, leaving tenants vulnerable to displacement and homelessness.

Read More

White jigsaw puzzle as a human brain on blue. Concept for Alzheimer's disease.

Detecting Dementia

Chloe Reichel Leave a comment

Cross-posted, with slight modification, from Harvard Law Today, where it originally appeared on November 21, 2020. 

By Chloe Reichel

Experts gathered last month to discuss the ethical, social, and legal implications of technological advancements that facilitate the early detection of dementia.

“Detecting Dementia: Technology, Access, and the Law,” was hosted on Nov. 16 as part of the Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience, a collaboration between the Center for Law, Brain and Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School.

The event, organized by Francis X. Shen ’06 Ph.D. ’08, the Petrie-Flom Center’s senior fellow in Law and Applied Neuroscience and executive director of the Center for Law, Brain and Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital, was one of a series hosted by the Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience on aging brains.

Early detection of dementia is a hopeful prospect for the treatment of patients, both because it may facilitate early medical intervention, as well as more robust advance care planning.

Read More

Sign that reads "Racism is a pandemic too."

Editor’s Choice: Important Reads on Race and Health

Chloe Reichel Leave a comment

By Chloe Reichel

Racism was embedded in the founding of the United States and has persisted in virtually all aspects of our society through the present day.

In 2020, structural racism was made especially apparent in the disproportionate toll the COVID-19 pandemic has taken on communities of color, which can be traced back to the social determinants of health, and in grotesque displays of police violence, such as the killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Elijah McClain.

Racism is the public health issue of our time, after having been woefully un- or under-addressed for centuries. The following posts, which were published on Bill of Health this year, highlight some of the most pressing issues to confront, as well as potential ways forward.

Read More