Supporting ResilientCommunities

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Toxic Stress and Coping

The toxic stress of racism affects individuals, families and communities and can prevent participation in in mitigation practices, including vaccines
Individuals develop physiological and mental health profiles that reflect the embodiment of racism as a chronic stressor.
Racism weakens bonds of social connectedness in families and communities.
The negative impact (or discrimination) that results from public stigma has been shown to take four forms: withholding help, avoidance, coercive treatment, and segregated institutions.
Any surveillance activity is potentially harmful. Data is never disconnected from power. Linkages to environmental racism/exposures.
Lessons learned from prior epidemics such as the HIV epidemic include that stigma exacerbates disease mitigation efforts among the most vulnerable populations, contributes to their mistrust of public health messages, delays access to recommended services and reduces adherence to prescribed treatment regimens.

Thus, it limits the potential of diverse communities to thrive during an epidemic. Monitoring these social exposures relative to COVID-19 would address a constraint of current efforts to address the root causes of COVID-19 inequities among diverse vulnerable populations; however, we are aware of no surveillance systems that do so.

Lived and Vicarious Trauma

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Media frames have an impact on community lenses and identities
Mass media images of police brutality, social injustice and stigmatized deaths (e.g. COVID) can have negative psychological impacts on communities of concern.

Medical Mistrust and Confidence

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Medical mistrust, vaccine hesitancy and other nonadherent responses to public health recommendations are tied to racist, historical trauma.
▪ Mistrust of the public health and healthcare sectors is longstanding and well-documented, especially among African Americans.
▪ It stems from historical as well as ongoing experiences with unequal treatment and racism within the healthcare system.
▪ The mistrust reflects legitimate concerns about racism, and therefore, should not be conflated with science denialism (e.g., climate denialism, anti-vaccine sentiment).

Promoting Community Connectedness

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