CHAS eNews August 2020

August 2020

CHAS eNews

POLICY BRIEFS

Disaster Preparedness and Social Justice in a Public Health Emergency

"Catastrophes provide a basic test of political and economic institutions to protect every member of our society." Helen Ross Professor of Social Service Administration and CHAS Committee member Harold Pollack has provided a thoughtful analysis on disaster preparedness shortcomings in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and discusses the accompanying implications for social justice. Dr. Pollack affirms that social justice in catastrophe requires strong social insurance structures and legal protections for the most vulnerable people, who would otherwise lack economic resources and political influence to protect their essential interests. Per his policy analysis, he advocates emergency public health response also requires a national and global public health enterprise, one that is funded and operated on a level commensurate with the financing and operation of personal health services. the most important failures of the COVID-19 pandemic have been structural and institutional, not specific mistakes made in the moment by key decision-makers. Please find the article link below to read the full PDF policy review.

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Black Cisgender Women's PrEP Knowledge, Attitudes, Preferences, and Experience in Chicago

Despite ground-breaking work to increase pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) awareness and uptake in Chicago, success in improving PrEP uptake among black cisgender women remains extremely low. Research into interventions to increase PrEP uptake and adherence in other disproportionately impacted groups, such as men of color who have sex with men and transgender women, is ongoing in many high burden areas in the United States. A Chicagoland research team, including CHAS Fellow and SSA Associate Professor Alida Bouris, designed a mixed-methods study examining PrEP knowledge, attitudes, preferences, and experiences among PrEP-naive and PrEP-initiated cisgender women to identify preferred intervention and implementation strategies that can increase PrEP uptake. This study found significant inequity in PrEP use among women compared with their need. Please refer to the article link below to read the study's methods and findings.