Thursday, March 17, 2022 | The Latest Research, Commentary, And News From Health Affairs
Dear John, In a new episode of the Pathways podcast, Avni Kulkarni and Sania Ali examine how our nation’s safety net is struggling to keep up with the increasing demand for emergency psychiatric treatment.
This podcast was created by Fellows at the Health Affairs Podcast Fellowship Program. Health Affairs is accepting applications for the next cohort of Health Policy Podcast Fellows through March 31.
Surviving Two Pandemics
Richard Sorian begins his Narrative Matters essay in the March 2022 issue of Health Affairs by
expressing his initial reaction to the emergence of COVID-19: "I survived the HIV/AIDS pandemic and now this? Two pandemics in one lifetime seemed cruel."
Sorian writes about the struggles with communicating about HIV/AIDS in media reporting and within the government.
"With AIDS our inability, or unwillingness, to communicate was a major reason the epidemic was able to take hold in the early 1980s," he reflects.
Communication failures interfered with the ability of scientists and public health professionals to respond to the disease and inform the public about the basics of prevention.
Although he remains hopeful, Sorian closes by making a grave point: "The response to COVID-19 in
many ways has become more dangerously polarized than the response to HIV/AIDS. And people are dying at much faster rates during this pandemic."
Listen to Sorian read his essay on the Narrative Matters podcast feed.
Elsewhere At Health Affairs
Today in Health Affairs Forefront, Diane C. Lewis examines the DC Health Benefit Exchange Authority (DCHBX), Washington DC’s health care Marketplace, and its commitment to dismantling inequity.
Elevating Voices: Women’s History Month: In her January 2022 Narrative Matters essay, Marny Smith writes about working to import stillbirth prevention policies to the US from abroad after her own experience of having a stillborn son at thirty-six weeks.
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