Of the many societal problems that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the fore, inequality is perhaps the most striking. In Chicago, the contrast between rich and poor seems especially sharp: low-income Black neighborhoods have seen far more cases and received far fewer vaccine doses than affluent white neighborhoods. Of the first 100 Chicagoans to die of the virus, seventy were Black.
Dr. Doriane Miller, MD, has witnessed these inequities firsthand. For more than twenty years, the general internist and associate professor in the University of Chicago Department of Medicine has provided care to underserved minority populations and conducted research on the intersection of health disparities and race. As Director of the Center for Community Health and Vitality in UChicago Medicine’s Urban Health Initiative, Dr. Miller works with fellow physicians, educators, and members of the South Side community to improve the health of its residents.
Over the winter, as she and her patients battled the virus, Dr. Miller recruited a team of experts from UChicago Medicine to address its disproportionate impact on communities of color for a roundtable discussion series sponsored by the University of Chicago Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies. In three hour-long panel discussions moderated by Dr. Miller and Professor Emily Osborn, Associate Professor of African History, African Studies, and the College and Interim Dean of the Graham School, participants explained the pandemic from their unique vantage in the healthcare field. The series considered COVID-19 and community health from a broad range of perspectives because the complexity of the pandemic’s effects on communities demands such an approach.