The Silent Epidemic

Life expectancy has rebounded in America’s peer countries as the pandemic has eased.  But in America it only continues to drop.  The numbers underscore a need for a national reckoning, and examination of what these low numbers really mean, what they say about the state of health and health care in America, and what the root causes of America’s botched response to Covid really were and continue to be.

Some of the low life expectancy overall in America can be accounted for by the very low numbers in minority groups.  The numbers for American Indians and Alaska Natives are downright disturbing.  According to the National Center for Health Statistics, life expectancy for American Indian and Alaska Natives is, due largely to Covid, 65.2 years.   The New York Times writes, “Average life expectancy in these populations is now ‘lower than that of every country in the Americas except Haiti, which is astounding,’ said Noreen Goldman, professor of demography and public affairs at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.”  

The problem was not vaccine hesitancy on the part of these communities.  The vaccine rollout was a success; their rates of vaccination higher than many other racial groups.  The most critical problem is that the public health structures tasked with serving these communities have been under-resourced and neglected so long.  This created two problems: there was not reliable access to health care when the crisis hit, and an underserved population had pre-existing medical conditions that made them more susceptible to severe illness and death.

The government has a responsibility to take a hard look at how this national tragedy was and is being allowed to occur.  Rohelle Walensky is moving in the right direction, saying that the CDC needs to overhaul the way it relates to the American people, particularly minority communities.  But, the problems run far deeper than just a failure to communicate at the CDC.  Public health on every level failed in this pandemic.  Walensky can’t do it alone.  It takes a national effort to solve a national problem.  That means the entire US citizenry has to be engaged.  

Lack of proper public health has been a silent epidemic in America for far too long.  Health professionals on the ground have pleaded with governments on every level to do something for decades.  Many could see the failures of the Covid pandemic coming.  If we had been listening, we would all be living in a very different world.  Covid deaths were preventable not only because they resulted from a failed public health response, but also because too many Americans, particularly minorities, were too unhealthy to begin with because of chronic underinvestment in public health.  We have an opportunity to say that those who died in the pandemic did not die in vain–that America will learn through their deaths to address the silent epidemic of underfunded public health.  

It has been too long to address the health discrepancies of minority communities and the overall poor health of this nation: if not now, when?