How do we move through crisis? Part 1
Our Community Partner Series
By Emma Strub of Revolutionary Spaces
After Revolutionary Spaces closed our doors in mid-March to slow the spread of Coronavirus in our community, we wanted to make sure we didn’t lose sight of our mission to bring people together to explore the history and continuing practice of democracy, especially the ideas borne from the Old State House and Old South Meeting House.
While we could no longer physically bring people together, we saw an opportunity to gather with fellow community members to discuss what we’ve learned from past pandemics, how it informs what we’re going through now, and how we can use those learnings to move towards a more equitable future once this crisis is over.
We recently held a virtual event on this topic with the Black Caucus of Health Workers, an outstanding organization that informs public health policy and addresses health inequities in black communities.
Our President & CEO Nat Sheidley was joined by Revolutionary Spaces board member and practicing physician Dr. Asaf Bitton, and two board members of BCHW, Afreda Holloway-Beth, Director of Epidemiology at the Cook County Department of Public Health in Illinois, and Shanae Burch, a health policy researcher and PhD candidate at Columbia University. Their knowledge, coupled with our historic perspective became the basis for our conversation, “Building Resilience: A Virtual Dialog”.
Throughout the conversation, our panelists explored the current public health crisis through a lens of epidemiology, history, and public health, discussing measures we all need to take, as well as disparities that exist in black and brown communities.
One of the first questions Shanae posed to our panelists involved how we think of social determinants of health and what those mean for this crisis. Alfreda explained what are commonly known as “upstream factors”: income, employment status, behavior, access to housing, nutrition, and medical care. These determinants, many of which are rooted in historical inequities, are what can contribute to a higher quality of life. Unfortunately for many, these determinants are detrimental and will play out in a very real way in this crisis.
Dr. Bitton recalled a story from one of his patients suffering from COVID who was told by a state hotline worker to monitor their temperature and call back if symptoms got worse. What was a seemingly simple task was made impossible due to the fact that this patient lives in an area of Boston where there is one pharmacy and one grocery store for roughly 50,000 people. There was no thermometer in sight.
Dr. Bitton suggested that we need to step back and take a very holistic look at approaching care if we’re going to be able to serve everyone. As a community, we must go the extra mile to understand those barriers that we, and other communities, may take for granted. We can’t address things narrowly, and we must mobilize on a large-scale if we’re going to tackle these challenges. As Nat noted in the conversation, we have a real opportunity in the aftermath of this crisis to use the memory of COVID-19 and its challenges as a vehicle for shaping a sense of common purpose for the future.
Revolutionary Spaces is committed to highlighting structural inequities and searching for ways we can partner to learn from the past and address disparities to move forward together. Next time on this blog, we’ll talk more about what resilience means during this crisis, and how we can build it together through conversations and community learning.
#Community #Equity #Equality #Health #Wealth #FriendsandFamily
