U.S. Senators Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters recently joined more than a dozen colleagues in introducing the federal COVID-19 Racial and Ethnic Disparities Task Force Act to create an interagency task force to identify and address racial and ethnic disparities leading to the devastatingly unequal impact of COVID-19 on communities of color. The legislation also calls for a report to Congress on structural inequalities preceding the COVID-19 pandemic and a permanent Task Force on Infectious Disease Racial and Ethnic Disparities focused on the healthcare system and improving the response to future crises. 

Michigan began a similar journey weeks earlier when Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced an executive order, creating the Michigan Coronavirus Task Force on Racial Disparities. Total COVID-19 cases in Michigan have grown to nearly 47,000 and over 4,500 cases have resulted in death. As CMF has reported, although African Americans represent 13.6% of the state’s total population, 41% (1,740) of COVID-19 related deaths in Michigan are African Americans. Michigan’s task force will advise the state’s leadership on the causes of this shocking disparity, provide recommendations for actions to reduce it and increase the state’s capacity to implement policies that reduce disparities.

Task forces are not the only solution, but they do offer opportunities for leaders to discuss equitable policy change with a sense of urgency.    

Following the creation of the task force, Whitmer signed an executive order “Affirming anti-discrimination policies and requiring certain health care providers to develop equitable access to care protocols.” This is a tremendous first step to increase transparency on disparate access to healthcare and inequitable health outcomes.

National and state data on disparities is still emerging. Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) reports that African Americans represent a higher share of both confirmed cases (20 of 31 states) and deaths (19 of 24 states). In Iowa, Latinx individuals represent 6% of the population and 17% of confirmed cases, and in Arizona, American Indians and Alaskan Natives are 4% of the population and represent 21% of deaths to COVID-19.

The unequal impact of COVID-19 on the poor and on communities of color is not surprising to funders and nonprofits working in the health equity and social justice space, who have been tracking the disparate impact of social policy on populations of color for decades. Many of the recent temporary changes being enacted in state and federal programs (increasing eligibility thresholds, loosening of program restrictions, etc.) reflect the longtime goals of foundation and nonprofit advocates. We see disparities in educational and employment opportunities, housing, criminal justice and access to quality, affordable healthcare.

The Office of Foundation Liaison's (OFL) work to address disparities in COVID-19 has included an ongoing partnership with the Michigan Department of Education (MDE). As MDE works to support the implementation of distance learning due to school closures, internet access is more critical than ever. Data provided to OFL following a recent MDE survey on digital access suggests that 28.6% of the state’s roughly 1.5 million students do not have internet access. While the digital divide is not a new problem, the urgency of reaching students and families to redefine education in the state has forced the prioritization of this issue among the litany of concerns in Michigan’s beleaguered education system. Disparities vary widely across the state with poorer urban and rural districts facing the greatest challenges in internet access.  

Making improvements in access for educational purposes has the potential to also improve access opportunities for whole families, for health care and other services, if we expand our thinking to consider the internet as critical public infrastructure and an inequity to be addressed.

People of color and individuals who live in low-income households face social and economic barriers during ‘normal’ times; that impact is exacerbated in a crisis. COVID-19 has shed a sobering light on the biases and shortcomings of our systems of support.

It is heartening to see robust, national discourse on the issue of health equity. We are seeing individuals, communities, businesses, nonprofits and government galvanized into meeting needs and finding solutions. Efforts at the state and national levels, too, give us reason to be hopeful.

While it is critically important to take immediate action to reduce disparate impacts during this pandemic, the social and structural inequities that caused these impacts have been generations in the making. The systemic, persistent inequalities that led us here will need to be addressed in a systemic, persistent way, by all of us. We will need to summon the collective courage to have many difficult conversations in the months and years to come.

Our current reality is not our new “normal.” It is a massive disruption to a system that has been producing and reproducing inequities in our society for far too long. We have the opportunity to shape the new “normal” that lies on the other side of this crisis, to influence policy and decision making in education, employment, healthcare, and other social supports through the lens of equity and justice. Philanthropy can play a pivotal role in solidifying equity as a principle of “normal.”

Special thanks to Monica Trevino, director of social enterprise, Michigan Public Health Institute, for collaborating with OFL on this article.

Want more?

Contact OFL to access MDE district-level data on the digital divide.