But what other lessons about creating a healthier Philadelphia have emerged from these past 18 months? We have seen how important our Department of Public Health is, something that we tend to lose sight of when we are not in a public health crisis but that is fundamental to the city’s well-being in countless and less visible ways, not only protecting us from infectious diseases but also by creating healthy environments to reduce chronic diseases.
The pandemic has highlighted the fundamental role of public health infrastructure: the need for robust systems to collect and analyze data, for the resources required to intervene based on that data, and the critical role of a coordinated and evidence-based response to any public health crisis. We have also seen illustrated yet again how systemic racism, in its many manifestations, profoundly shapes the health of Black people and people of color in our city and in cities all over the United States. The distribution of COVID-19 starkly illustrated how health is not distributed randomly, but rather follows predictable patterns that reflect inequities in living and working conditions across generations. The last year and a half has made more visible than ever the multiple ways in which the social and economic systems that we live in affect our health and create and sustain profound inequities in health across races, social classes, and neighborhoods. Diez Roux, MD, PhD, the Dana and David Dornsife dean and Distinguished University Professor of Epidemiology at the Dornsife School of Public Health and director of the Drexel Urban Health Collaborative. The following essay was originally published in The Philadelphia Inquirer in collaboration with Drexel University’s Lindy Institute for Urban Innovation as part of Rebuilding Philly, a series of commentary articles written by Drexel faculty and professional staff related to the COVID-19 pandemic and racial and economic equity gaps in Philadelphia. Cars lined up at the drive-through testing site in South Philadelphia outside Citizens Bank Park in March 2020.
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