Black Health Matters Too… Especially in the Era of Covid-19: How Poverty and Race Converge to Reduce Access to Quality Housing, Safe Neighborhoods, and Health and Wellness Services and Increase the Risk of Co-morbidities Associated with Global Pandemics

• Published in: Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities 2021-08, Vol.8 (4), p.1012-1025
• Main Author: Duque, Richard B
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Access; Adolescent; Adult; African Americans; African Americans - statistics & numerical data; Aged; Barriers; Child; Child, Preschool; Comorbidity; COVID-19; COVID-19 - ethnology; Epidemiology; Female; Food deserts; Health services; Health Services Accessibility - statistics & numerical data; Health Status Disparities; Hispanic Americans; Housing; Housing - standards; Humans; Intersectionality; Male; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Middle Aged; Minority & ethnic groups; Neighborhoods; Nonprofit organizations; Pandemics; Participatory action research; Poverty; Poverty - ethnology; Qualitative analysis; Qualitative research; Quality of Life Research; Race; Residence Characteristics - statistics & numerical data; Resilience; Risk Assessment; Risk reduction; Safety; Social Determinants of Health - ethnology; Social Inequality; Social Structure; United States - epidemiology; Young Adult
• ISSN: 2197-3792; 2196-8837
• DOI: 10.1007/s40615-020-00857-w

Objectives This research offers an alternative to the singular focus on improving health services to the African American community to increase their resilience to health-related co-morbidities associated with Covid-19 deaths. Methods This study employs a participatory action research (PAR) approach, where local non-profit organizations and researchers partnered with a challenged community in a self-study of intergenerational poverty related to health issues and the various obstacles to breaking this cycle. Results A quantitative and qualitative analysis of interview and focus group data suggests that the majority of those living in poor neighborhoods report reducing intersectional factors that are the cause and function of intergenerational poverty would reduce poverty and by extension increase African Americans’ resilience to health-related mortality. Conclusions Analysis of data related to overlapping obstacles like lack of access to safe housing and quality health services offers both context and insight about how policies addressing poverty reduction may offer pathways for reducing the co-morbidities associated with pandemic risk for African Americans.