Pandemic Meets Endemic: The Role of Social Inequalities and Failing Public Health Policies as Drivers of Disparities in COVID-19 Mortality among White, Black, and Hispanic Communities in the United States of America.

The COVID-19 pandemic placed the United States of America (U.S.) under enormous strain, leaving it with higher deaths during the first wave of the outbreak compared to all other advanced economies. Blacks and Hispanics were among those hardest hit by the virus-a fact attributed to enduring problems related to the social determinants of health adversely affecting Communities of Color (CoC). In this study, we ask which distinct factors relating to policy stringency and community vulnerability influenced COVID-19 mortality among Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics during the first year of the pandemic. To address this question, we utilized a mix of correlational and regression analyses. Findings point to the highly divergent impact of public policy and vulnerability on COVID-19 mortality. Specifically, we observed that state-led measures aimed at controlling the spread of the virus only improved mortality for Whites. However, pre-existing social determinants of health (i.e., population density, epidemiological and healthcare system factors) played a significant role in determining COVID-19 outcomes for CoC, even in the face of stringent containment measures by states. This suggests that state-led policy to address present and/or future public health crises need to account for the particular nature of vulnerability affecting Blacks and Hispanics in the U.S.

Comparing apples to oranges? Minimizing typological biases to better classify healthcare systems globally.

The present study explores the role of typologies as an analytical device in understanding both the theoretical and empirical manifestations of healthcare systems globally. In a first step, we explore the relative benefits and limits of different classificatory logics - inductive vs. deductive - before conducting a review of scholarship on healthcare system classifications. We argue that, in order to capture the role of global actors (international organizations, donor countries etc.) in low-to-upper-middle income economies, classificatory systems must account for potential territorial shifts across the dimensions of financing, service provision and regulation defining all healthcare systems. In its absence, comparative research involving countries of significantly different levels of economic development becomes obfuscated. In an effort to redress this gap in the literature, we lay out how state, societal, market and global actors feature across different dimensions of healthcare systems, putting forth a deductively derived and actor-centered typology.