Town hall focuses on lack of resources for Pittsburgh black communities during coronavirus pandemic
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The covid-19 pandemic has put a “glaring spotlight” on the inequities in social systems that hurt black families, community leaders said during a virtual town hall Tuesday.
“All of these things make a perfect storm for the African American community,” said Trisha Gadson, CEO of Macedonia Family and Community Enrichment. She cited unemployment, lack of insurance, lack of access to resources, misdiagnoses in maternal health and other disadvantages.
The town hall was hosted by 1Hood Media, an art collective that raises awareness on social justice issues. Representatives from the medical community and advocacy groups came together to share resources and information about how covid-19 is affecting black communities in Western Pennsylvania.
In most cities across the United States, black communities have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, accounting for up to 70% of covid-19 deaths in some areas.
The Allegheny Health Department began releasing data on the race of covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths earlier this month. As of Wednesday, the health department has reported 173 confirmed cases of the virus among black residents, which is 16% of total cases. Hospitalizations for the virus included 41 black patients, or 21% of total hospitalizations. Eight black patients have died, making up 11% of covid-19 deaths in the county.
African Americans make up about 13% of Allegheny County’s population, according to 2019 Census estimates.
Speakers at the town hall named many ways poor black residents have been neglected in the region’s response to the crisis.
One of the most prominent oversights, said Dr. Jerome Gloster, is access to testing. As CEO of Primary Care Health Service, Gloster oversees federally funded clinics in many communities with a majority black population, including McKeesport, Braddock, Homestead, Hazelwood, the West End, the Hill District, East Liberty and Wilkinsburg.
“There are limited resources flowing into a lot of these practices, and ours is one of them,” Gloster said. “Meaning it’s hard to get personal protective equipment. It’s hard to get the testing kits.”
Gloster proposed collaboration between Primary Care Health Service and other community health centers, large health systems and the Allegheny County Health Department for a unified approach to ensure proper testing in black communities.
Until recently, Gloster said, the region’s major hospital chains had no testing sites in any of these communities. Allegheny Health Network and UPMC also limit testing to patients who can provide insurance information and a prescription from a primary care physician.
Many of the residents that Gloster’s facilities serve don’t have those resources, he said. Many must rely on public transportation to travel to a testing site – not ideal if they are already experiencing symptoms of the deadly disease.
Even if a patient manages to get tested, recovery is harder in these communities, said 1HoodMedia CEO Jasiri X.
“Being told to quarantine at home,” he said, “is much more complicated in our community with our being, in some cases, right on top of each other or maybe even having to catch public transportation from the doctor’s office.”
Primary Care Health Service sites will begin offering on-site testing within one two weeks, Gloster said. Additionally, the clinics try to address those “social determinants” that Jasiri X mentioned, frequently and proactively checking in on patients with chronic health issues, providing transportation and other services. The facilities do not turn patients away if they’re unable to pay.
As a member of the African American Strategic Partnership, Gadson said she and representatives from 11 other African American-led social organizations in the region are working to disseminate health guidelines and provide resources for black communities.
“We’re trying to determine the best method to ensure that the Pittsburgh and Greater Allegheny region does not see the same level of outcome and disparities in relation to covid-19 as we see in some other cities,” Gadson said.
The collaboration has resulted in a social media campaign, #ProtectTheBlackCommunity, aimed at decreasing exposure to the virus, increasing the availability of testing in black communities and ensuring access to a vaccine when one is available. The groups also have invested in four roadside billboards in Homewood, Wilkinsburg, McKeesport and on the North Side to disseminate information about public health guidelines to black communities.
Gadson said the goal of the group is to use their position as leaders in the nonprofit sector to draw attention to the black community when it comes to testing and specific risk factors.
“Recognizing how the different factors and risk factors that impact the black community contribute to this,” she said, “and that we need to pivot away from the national theme that suggests that we are at fault for the factors that impact us, as a people.”
As the pandemic becomes politicized, with some calling for the country to reopen against the advice of health officials, Jasiri X said the inequities are not limited to exposure and treatment of the disease. The pandemic has highlighted existing double standards when it comes to public protests, he said.
“A lot of times we’re on the front line of a protest and we’re met with a lot more resistance and we never come with any guns. We never come with any violent attitude,” he said, referring to protests that took place Monday in Downtown Pittsburgh. “I didn’t see any of the aggression that always seems to come when we come together to protest for injustice peacefully.”
As it has in many areas across sectors, the pandemic has highlighted existing inequities and presented an opportunity for correction, said Cheryl Hall-Russell, president of Black Women Wise Women, which supports diverse hiring strategies.
“We were already aware and now we’re hyper aware of what those racial fault lines are, and how we’re falling through these cracks in a serious way,” she said. “We have no patience for normal, and we have no interest in returning to it.”