Posts in Public Health
'A Race Against Time': A Conversation on COVID-19 and Health Equity with MGH Executive Dr. Marcela del Carmen

HHPR Editor James Jolin interviewed Dr. Marcela del Carmen, the Chief Medical Officer for the Massachusetts General Physicians Organization and Gynecologic Oncologist at the Center for Gynecologic Oncology. They discussed the impact the COVID-19 pandemic had on the Massachusetts General Hospital System, lessons learned, health equity and vaccine distribution.

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Trials and Therapeutics: Important Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the world, and clinicians scrambled to find effective treatments for their patients. Through unprecedented rates of research and collaboration across disciplines, several therapies were demonstrated to show promise, while others fell short. In this piece, we argue clinical trials can—and, indeed, must—be done during a pandemic to identify safe and effective therapeutics and that these trials must be completed free of political pressures. For optimal treatments, we ought to prepare clinical trials before—not during—public health emergencies.

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Food Equity in the Age of COVID-19: A Conversation with Professor Emily Broad Leib

The way in which we regulate the food system is disjointed and leads to unequal burdens placed on women, people of color, the elderly, food workers, and community-level food producers. Through the implementation of a National Food Strategy, we could help get input from different stakeholders and have the way we regulate drive towards optimal goals.

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The Intersection of Food and Medicine: An Interview with Dr. Lisa Haushofer

The nutraceutical and health foods markets are among the fastest growing and most promising markets worldwide. Thus, it is important that the intersection of food and medicine is studied because dietary supplements play an important role in our nutritional culture and in people’s approaches to nutrition.

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Maximizing the Impact of Contact Tracing for COVID-19: The Importance of Human-Centered and Equity-Driven Programming

Successful contact tracing requires acknowledging structural inequities, deliberately designing programs to address them, and fitting solutions within broader support systems. After all, a program to stop community transmission will not achieve its intended impact if people are unable to isolate/quarantine.

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