Baligh Yehia, Agnela Winegar, Richard Fogel, et al, 2020. Published in JAMA, this article looked at mortality rates for COVID-19. While the story found that mortality did not differ between Black and white patients. However, as the authors note, those conclusions only looked at people able to access hospital care, and the authors adjusted for sociodemographic factors and comorbidities which often hit Black and other marginalized communities at a higher rate.
Meirui Qian and Jianli Jiang, 2020 Published in the Journal of Public Health, this article discusses social distancing and mask wearing as measures to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Devan Hawkins, 2020. The Guardian. Black people will bear a disproportionate share of the virus’s impact. We must do everything we can to prevent that.
Dennis Andrulis, Nadia Siddiqui, Jonathan Purtle, and Maria Cooper. 2012. (pdf file) This report documents the health disparities in the 2009-10 H1N1 pandemic, explores the reasons for the disparities, and offers recommendations for integrating diversity and equity into pandemic planning and response.
Kelly Servick, July 2020. A discussion of testing disparities in low-income and minority neighborhoods, as well as missing demographic data for COVID-19 tests.
Morgane Stum, April 2020. Discussions around how research institutes can maintain staff and animal health and safety while continuing scientific investigations during a pandemic.
Philip Blumenshine, Arthur Reingold, Susan Egerter, et al. 2008. Emerging Infectious Disease. The authors explore how different socioeconomic and racial/ethnic groups in the United States might fare in an influenza pandemic on the basis of social factors.
Adrian Shields, Sian Faustinin, Marisol Perez-Toledo, et al. 2020. Thorax. Reports the results of a study to determine the rates of COVID-19 antibodies in healthcare workers. Researchers found that Black, Asian, and minority ethnic health care workers had a significantly higher risk of seropositivity.
Christine Johnson, Peta Hitchens, Tierra Evans, et al. 2015 This report published in Nature looks at animal hosts and transmission mechanisms of zoonotic viruses.
Tonia Poteat, Gregorio Millett, LaRon Nelson, and Chris Beyrer, 2020 This article explores multiple historical and present-day factors have created the syndemic conditions within which black Americans experience the lethal force of COVID-19.
Doctors without Borders, June 2020 A discussion with Ruth Kauffman, a nurse and midwife with Doctors without borders. She talks about her work with the Navajo Nation and Pueblo peoples in the southwestern states of New Mexico and Arizona.
Economic Policy Institute. 2021. The Economic Policy Institute's toolkit to provide guidance for policymakers and the public steps we can take to mitigate widespread economic shock from COVID-19.
Moderna, 2021 The enrollment website for the Moderna phase 3 trials of their COVID-19 vaccine. The page was previously titled "COVE Study: Participated to Make a World of Difference."
amfAR. 2021. A series of visualizations and data that illustrate the disproportionate risk that Black and Latinx Americans face in the COVID-19 epidemic.
CDC. 2020. A page about underlying health and social inequities that put many racial and ethnic minority groups at increased risk of getting sick, having more severe illness, and dying from COVID-19.
International Rescue Committee, 2021 The IRC's page about the impacts of COVID-19 on refugee camps. Includes visualizations of population density of camps and links to more information.
Based on research in virology, molecular biology, disease ecology, and medicine, this book examines the current outbreak of infectious diseases and outlines what can be done to prevent the coming plague.
Nick Estes and Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. 2020. Monthly Review. This article looks at why race and white supremacy are central to class consciousness and how the history of colonialism can inform us about our current moment.
Jesse Bump, Fran Baum, Milin, Sakornsin, et al. 2021. BMJ. The political economy of covid-19 reflects longstanding patterns of resource extraction linked to racial discrimination, marginalisation, and colonialism
Whitney Laster Pirtle. 2020. Health Education & Behavior. This research article looks at at racial capitalism as a fundamental cause of racial and socioeconomic inequities within the COVID-19 pandemic in the US.
Right to Health Action, featuring Dr. Mary Bassett, Luz Zambrano, Jaron Benjamin, and Professor Ruha Benjamin, and moderated by Priya Fremerman. 2020. YouTube video. This panel discussion looks at what led to the inequalities in COVID-19 outcomes across many social fault lines, in particular lines of race in America.
Delan Devakumar, Sujitha Selvarajah, Geordan Shannon, et al. 2020. The Lancet. This article in the medical journal, The Lancet, written shortly after the killing of Mr. George Floyd, describes racism as a public health crisis.
Bruce Link and Jo Phelan. 1995. Journal of Health and Social Behavior. (pdf) This article looks at social factors such as socioeconomic status and social support and argues that they are likely fundamental causes of disease.
Michelle Morse, Amy Finnegan, Bram Wispelwey, Chandra Ford. 2020. Health Affairs Blog. A look at the movement towards progressive health policies, driven in part by COVID-19 through a Critical Race Theory lens.
Cedric Robinson argues that efforts to understand black people's history of resistance solely through the prism of Marxist theory are incomplete and inaccurate. Black radicalism must be linked to the traditions of Africa and the unique experiences of blacks on western continents.
UNAIDS, 2005. This report from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS comes out of a workshop to which 62 academic theologians from different Christian traditions were invited to address HIV- and AIDS-related stigma and discrimination.
Call Number: Ireland Library, Main Collection - RC178.A1 B58 1994
From 1348 to 1350 Europe was devastated by an epidemic that left between a third and one half of the population dead. This source book traces, through contemporary writings, the calamitous impact of the Black Death in Europe.
Islamic Law Blog, May 2020. A collection of essays on the theme of pandemics in Islamic history and thought. See especially the contributions by Younus Mirza and Justin Stearns.
Abd al-Hakim Murad, April 2020. A leading British Muslim theologian reflects on our current pandemic and its implications from an Islamic theological perspective.
An early twentieth-century work by a leading South Asian Muslim scholar and Sufi giving a spiritual perspective on how to response to epidemics, written during a period of many epidemics in South Asia.
Resources to explore more on your own
Below are links to more databases and places to explore more about this topic.
American Public Media Research Lab. Updated monthly. The Color of Coronavirus project monitors how and where COVID-19 mortality is inequitably impacting certain communities.
The Atlantic. Will be updated through March 7 A project collecting data around COVID-19 and providing analysis of that data. Includes the COVID Racial Data Tracker. This project will stop publishing updates in early March 2021.
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs All policy briefs published by UN/DESA. Many of the recent briefs are about social and political impacts of COVID-19
Written right before the COVID-19 outbreak, this reference book provides information about widespread disease outbreaks and their associated threats, as well as information about disease management.
