Incorporating Health Equity Into COVID-19 Reopening Plans: Policy Experimentation in California
Michelle Mello evaluates the benefits and challenges of California's novel health equity focus in its reopening efforts and outlines recommendations for other U.S. states to address disparities in their reopening plans.
California has focused on health equity in the state’s COVID-19 reopening plan. The Blueprint for a Safer Economy assigns each of California’s 58 counties into one of four tiers based on two metrics: test positivity rate and adjusted case rate. To advance to the next less-restrictive tier, counties must meet that tier’s test positivity and adjusted case rate thresholds. In addition, counties must have a plan for targeted investments within disadvantaged communities, and counties with more than 106 000 residents must meet an equity metric.
California's explicit incorporation of health equity into its reopening plan underscores the interrelated fate of its residents during the COVID-19 pandemic and creates incentives for action.
In this article published in the American Journal of Public Health, SHP's Michelle Mello, a professor of medicine and professor of law at Stanford Law School, and colleagues evaluates the benefits and challenges of this novel health equity focus, and outlines recommendations for other US states to address disparities in their reopening plans.
