Encountering the social determinants of health on a COVID-19 ICU: Frontline providers’ perspectives on inequality in a time of pandemic

Autor: Sara Shostak, Julia Bandini, Wendy Cadge, Vivian Donahue, Mariah Lewis, Katelyn Grone, Sophie Trachtenberg, Robert Kacmarek, Laura Lux, Cristina Matthews, Mary Elizabeth McAuley, Frederic Romain, Colleen Snydeman, Tara Tehan, Ellen Robinson
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: SSM: Qualitative Research in Health, Vol 1, Iss , Pp 100001- (2021)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2667-3215
DOI: 10.1016/j.ssmqr.2021.100001
Popis: Efforts to improve health equity may be advanced by understanding health care providers' perceptions of the causes of health inequalities. Drawing on data from in-depth interviews with nurses and registered respiratory therapists (RRTs) who served on intensive care units (ICUs) during the first surge of the pandemic, this paper examines how frontline providers perceive and attribute the unequal impacts of COVID-19. It shows that nurses and RRTs quickly perceived the pandemic's disproportionate burden on Black and Latinx individuals and families. Providers attribute these inequalities to the social determinants of health, and also raise questions about how barriers to healthcare access may have made some patients more vulnerable to the worst consequences of COVID-19. Providers' perceptions of inequality and its consequences on COVID-19 ICUs were emotionally impactful and distressing, suggesting that this is a critical moment for offering clinicians practical strategies for understanding and addressing the persistent structural inequities that cause racial inequalities in health.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals