Daniel Dawes authors Op-Ed in Essence Magazine: COVID-19: Black Folks Have Been Trying To Tell You That Data Is Political
Daniel E. Dawes, Director of the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine believes there are lessons from the success we realized in other crises to advance more equitable policies today.
“When we get through this and we will, once we look back and crunch the numbers, the disparities will be appalling, like they have been every time there has been a crisis. They always are. Again, we have an opportunity to change the outlook. At the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine, as we have conducted our own examination of all state health departments and major municipalities with large minority populations, we found no states that reported income/socioeconomic data or insurance status, and only three states (SC, VA and MI) include race and ethnicity data in their daily reporting measures. Majority of states include age and gender in their daily reporting measures (only 26% of states do not report cases relative to age and gender). We must do better if we are to stem the tide of this pandemic and its disproportionate impact on communities of color.”
Read full article from Essence Magazine