CU Boulder professor is concerned that the focus on individual responsibility for health and wellness—especially during health crises like the COVID pandemic—overlooks underlying causes as to why minorities generally had worse outcomes than the overall population in the U.S. 博彩平台推荐将在下次研讨会上讨论这些想法

In the days since COVID-19 first became a pandemic in the United States in 2020, researchers and health care professionals developed a series of guidelines associated with getting vaccinated, 屏蔽, 洗手和保持社交距离, 以及改变生活方式, to reduce the risk of dying or becoming seriously ill from the disease.

这些指导方针是善意的, but 同时 they generally are focused on “biomedical individualism” (how the virus is transmitted and what the individual could do to reduce their risk) to the exclusion of understanding why certain segments of the population, 特别是种族和少数民族, 受到COVID-19伤害的风险要大得多, Maisam Alomar说, 博彩平台推荐 professor in women and gender studies. Part of her research focuses on race and gender policies of medicine and rehabilitation.

“这并不是说口罩或疫苗不重要,阿罗马尔说, acknowledging that the politics around COVID-19 can be polarizing. 然而, 同时, “part of what I’m suggesting is that we need to be moving away from our almost exclusive focus on biomedical individualism in our understanding of wellness … to try to understand that group wellness is not just the sum of individual behaviors or the biological mechanisms by which the virus can infect someone.”

例如, the scientific and health care communities came to embrace the idea that making healthful lifestyle choices could reduce the risk of becoming sick from COVID—without recognizing that these lifestyle choices are not equally available to everyone, that some people live in “food deserts” that make it difficult to obtain nutritious meals or that those populations don’t have easy access to recreational spaces, 根据Alomar的说法.

“These are some of the things we don’t tend to consider as much,她说。, 添加, “I’m also suggesting that we should be tailoring our interventions to account for the most vulnerable people … and this idea that when you structure your health care systems in a way that’s geared toward the most vulnerable people that you yield better health results for everyone.”

更重要的是, 当考虑为什么某些群体的人, 比如种族或少数民族, 当涉及到COVID时，结果会更糟吗, there is a tendency even among the scientific community to ascribe those outcomes to preexisting conditions within those communities or even biological factors—rather than issues having to do with socioeconomic inequities more generally and the disparity in health care among different segments of the U.S. 人口，根据Alomar.

Alomar将分享博彩app推荐COVID-19和美国的其他观点.S. 在她即将举行的研讨会上讨论医疗保健政策, “Moving Away from Biomedical Individualism in Health and Wellness.” This event is scheduled as a Zoom presentation starting at 11 a.m. 3月21日，星期二. 该活动是免费的，但需要注册.

该活动是…的一部分 让博彩平台推荐好好学习 speaker series for CU staff, students and interested community members. 这个系列是…的分支 很好, a wellness initiative launched by the 文理学院.

Alomar draws a line between COVID-19’s effects on varying populations relate and the “interdisciplines” at universities.

根据Alomar的说法, interdisciplines—which includes Black and feminist studies—have performed valuable research related to COVID-19. 这一点尤其正确, 她说, when it comes to debunking some unsupported claims involving COVID-19 outcomes based on race and ethnicity. 

例如, she notes that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has highlighted obesity as a co-morbidity factor disproportionally harming minorities in COVID outcomes, but that research from a noted sociologist found that “the association between ‘obesity’ and mortality is baseless.”

Alomar says interdisciplines at universities can be very useful for the insights and critiques they provide for various fields of study, 比如科学和医疗保健. 同时, 她说 interdisciplines also tend to be one of the programs universities first look to cut when their finances are dented by unforeseen circumstances, such as the Great Recession of 2008 or the COVID-19 pandemic.

“What I’m saying is interdisciplines offer a very useful critique, 这在大学里是非常重要的,阿罗马尔说. “预算紧张的时候, 人们开始问, 如果发生危机，博彩平台推荐真的需要这个(研究领域)吗? I think that when there’s a crisis we need these fields even more because of the explanatory power they offer.”