{"id":49455,"date":"2021-01-26T18:01:58","date_gmt":"2021-01-26T17:01:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=49455"},"modified":"2021-01-29T20:05:19","modified_gmt":"2021-01-29T19:05:19","slug":"iatrogenesis-and-harm-in-covid-19-when-medical-care-ignores-social-forces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2021\/01\/26\/iatrogenesis-and-harm-in-covid-19-when-medical-care-ignores-social-forces\/","title":{"rendered":"Iatrogenesis and harm in covid-19\u2014when medical care ignores social forces"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"standfirst\">When we fail to recognise the systematically unequal social forces that drive the spread of disease, it can lead to harm, say Seth Holmes and colleagues<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Covid-19 is at once a pandemic caused by an infectious and potentially deadly virus and also a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/28271845\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">syndemic<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.degruyter.com\/view\/journals\/opan\/1\/1\/article-p7.xml\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">nexus of important biological and social problems<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. We\u2019ve seen a considerable amount of media coverage focused on how covid-19 exposes the stark inequalities within societies and across the world: we know that your odds of being infected by SARS-CoV-2 and having severe and deadly disease is shaped by social forces. Yet this awareness of the social dimensions of health is not just an important supplement to the core work of medicine. Rather, the covid-19 pandemic reminds us that <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nejm.org\/doi\/full\/10.1056\/NEJMp1916269\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">ignoring social forces can lead us to commit misdiagnosis, mistreatment, and harm<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">For example, in the US, which has long led the industrialized world in <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/books\/NBK220344\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">social inequalities and related poor health outcomes<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Black and Latinx people are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/mmwr\/volumes\/69\/wr\/mm6915e3.htm\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">significantly more likely than white people to die from covid-19<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenationshealth.org\/content\/50\/6\/1.1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">working class people<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> providing essential services are more likely to be exposed and infected. Governments have instructed people to \u201cstay home,\u201d while some continue <a href=\"https:\/\/ajph.aphapublications.org\/doi\/10.2105\/AJPH.2020.305704\">conducting raids of immigrant communities<\/a>, separating families, detaining people in overcrowded conditions that are ripe for viral spreading, and deporting people\u2014all of which <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/news\/public-health\/2020\/03\/31\/is-the-us-deporting-immigrants-with-the-coronavirus\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">cause transnational spread of the virus<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. People who are homeless<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfexaminer.com\/news\/explosive-catastrophe-70-test-positive-for-covid-19-at-sf-homeless-shelter\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> who thus cannot \u201cshelter in place\u201d<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> face increased risks for infection. The same goes for those who are unable to \u201cphysically distance\u201d because they are incarcerated or simply because they are tightly packed on mass transit to get to the low wage essential service jobs they depend on for income. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">All of these inequities also increase a person\u2019s risk for having already developed &#8220;pre-existing conditions&#8221; due to harmful living or working conditions, the effects of discrimination, and lack of preventive healthcare. And we know that having a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/mmwr\/volumes\/69\/wr\/mm6915e3.htm\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">pre-existing condition worsens a person\u2019s odds<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> of severe outcomes once infected with SARS-CoV-2.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Not only can we do better for our patients; if we are to uphold the Hippocratic Oath, we must.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">When we misdiagnose the cause of the covid-19 pandemic as solely a virus, without acknowledging the critical role of an unequal social system, our misattribution can lead to iatrogenesis and harm. Considering the fact that social inequalities are the leading comorbid pathogen contributing to covid-19-related deaths, clinicians and health systems must reorient their work to consider and respond to the social structures and policies that drive those inequalities in the first place.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Health recommendations focused on individual behavior have limited success when they do not respond to systematically unequal social forces. Beyond the harm caused by these social forces, governments and health systems cause further damage by treating patients with covid unequally. We have witnessed the avoidable deaths of old and young people alike due to underfunded health systems built on private insurance companies or a person\u2019s ability to pay out of pocket. The media have shown powerful people who\u2019ve had quick access to testing while many have not been able to be tested unless they are severely sick (and have health insurance). This means that many people have not been able to quarantine and benefit from contact tracing\u2014both of which are necessary to curb the pandemic. Such discrimination at the level of populations causes avoidable exposure, infection, and death.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In addition, discriminatory mistreatment has been documented within health systems, intensifying distrust of healthcare institutions, with reports of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/atlantablackstar.com\/2020\/03\/26\/shes-not-a-priority-london-woman-36-dies-after-ordered-to-self-care-at-home-while-suffering-suspected-covid-19-symptoms\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Black patients in the UK refused treatment<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/03\/23\/opinion\/coronavirus-ventilators-triage-disability.html?smid=fb-share&amp;fbclid=IwAR3AQA18S1-rPEF-aQm0uiMomu2T5PPUoxWzUflEZD3q3Cy3YD8Ud31dNQY\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">people with disabilities fearing discrimination in triage decisions<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> on who receives intensive care. As governments attempt to mobilize mass covid vaccination campaigns across the world, this distrust has become a major barrier to vaccine take-up: <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/racial-disparities-create-obstacles-covid-19-vaccine-rollout-n1249627\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">in one study in the US<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, only 18% of Black Americans stated they would definitely take the vaccine. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the same time, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/12\/25\/business\/coronavirus-vaccines-global-economy.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">inequalities in access to vaccines<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> promise to worsen economic inequalities between nations and within nations. The director general of the World Health Organization warns that \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/video\/world\/europe\/100000007557019\/vaccine-distribution-who.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the world is on the brink of a catastrophic moral failure<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201d as millions of vaccines are administered in wealthy nations, and mere dozens in poorer nations.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We are seeing <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/gh.bmj.com\/content\/5\/10\/e003928\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">early evidence<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that when communities provide health services for all and organize to protect one another across social differences, the pandemic is blunted for everyone. Grassroots movements, including groups of health professionals, aiming to address these inequities and forms of mistreatment have shown success in program and policy efforts that curb the pandemic. Unions of health workers have demanded protective gear for themselves and for patients. People living in homeless camps, along with advocates and policy makers, have organized to make shelter available, and in some cases have been able to change policy to increase the amount of affordable long term housing. Global health advocacy groups have argued that poor countries are likely to have widespread community transmission if protective equipment is hoarded by Europe and North America. And policy makers in the US, aware of the ways in which unequal access to new treatments can worsen health disparities, are working to make <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/health\/2020\/12\/18\/covid-vaccine-racial-equity\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">racial equity a stated goal in vaccine rollout<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Covid-19 has not only infected individuals, it has also revealed the pathologies of our national and international programs and policies. Our collective wellbeing in the face of covid and future pandemics rests on recognizing and rectifying the systematically unequal social forces that drive the spread of disease.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><strong><span class=\"il\">Seth<\/span>\u00a0M\u00a0<span class=\"il\">Holmes<\/span><\/strong> is a physician and social anthropologist and associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley and University of California, San Francisco and Paoli Calmettes chair at IMeRA Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Study. He is also the author of <\/em>Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States<em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Competing interests:<\/strong> none declared.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Angela Jenks<\/strong> is associate professor of teaching and director of undergraduate studies in anthropology at the University of California Irvine. She is also editor in chief of <\/em>Teaching and Learning Anthropology Journal<em>. Twitter <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/angelacjenks\">@angelacjenks<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Competing interests:<\/strong> none declared.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Helena Hansen<\/strong> is chair of the research theme in translational social science and associate director of the Center for Social Medicine at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. She is also author of<\/em> Addicted to Christ: Remaking Men in Puerto Rican Pentecostal Drug Ministries.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Competing interests:<\/strong> none declared.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Scott D Stonington<\/strong> is assistant professor of anthropology, international studies, and internal medicine at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is also author of<\/em> The Spirit Ambulance: Choreographing the End of Life in Thailand.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Competing interests:<\/strong> none declared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When we fail to recognise the systematically unequal social forces that drive the spread of disease, it can lead to harm, say Seth Holmes and colleagues [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2021\/01\/26\/iatrogenesis-and-harm-in-covid-19-when-medical-care-ignores-social-forces\/\">More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":419,"featured_media":49456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1357],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-health-care"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - 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