WHMP Panorama: Prof. Sprague Martinez on How Systemic Inequities Affect Long Covid Diagnosis & Treatment
Linda Sprague Martinez, an associate professor at BU School of Social Work (BUSSW), recently shared her expertise on the social and community aspects of long Covid on WHMP Radio’s Panorama podcast. Joined by medical practitioner Bruce Levy, she discussed the poorly understood disorder’s effects and symptoms, as well as the systemic inequalities that make diagnosis and treatment challenging.
Excerpted from “Long Covid” on WHMP Radio’s Panorama podcast:
The reality is that we have pervasive health care inequities that exist here in Massachusetts as well as in the country more broadly … We all have different experiences with our health care providers. And we know that people of color accessing health care don’t have the same experience as people who maybe identify as White [and] people who live in poverty might have a very different experience than upper middle class people experiencing health care because of inequities and underlying biases that exist.’
Reflecting on focus groups she conducted in English, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Portuguese in areas with high rates of long Covid, Sprague Martinez added that information about long Covid needs to be shared more widely and more effectively. ‘We need to start getting information about long Covid out there and start naming the symptoms and letting people know. Not only do we need it out there for the public and for patients, but we also need it out there for providers.’”
Listen to the full episode here.
Professor Sprague Martinez is an associate professor and former chair of the Macro Social Work Practice Department at BUSSW. She specializes in community-based participatory research, youth-led research and action, and community-driven approaches to health promotion, and served as director of the Health Equity Core for Harvard Medical School’s Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness.