Sandro Galea is a contributing author.

The health of Americans is not as good as it could be and is worse than the health of populations of other wealthy nations. America’s lower health status, referred to as the U.S. health disadvantage, inflicts costs on individuals, families, businesses, and society. The coronavirus pandemic of 2020 exposed additional costs as the virus claimed more lives among those with certain underlying conditions—such as obesity and diabetes that are found in greater proportion among Americans than among residents of many other wealthy countries—and disrupted the economy to such a grave extent that access to healthcare coverage was diminished, as millions of individuals lost employer-sponsored health insurance, and preventive services were interrupted. For businesses, the U.S. health disadvantage increases healthcare costs, lowers productivity and competitiveness, and compromises business success and growth. This report strives to convince business leaders of the importance of community health to the bottom lines of businesses and to the health of the economy. The report (a) highlights the U.S. health disadvantage and the importance of strengthening communities and improving the health of residents, and (b) offers recommendations for how businesses can address the U.S. health disadvantage by engaging with and investing in communities, while creating value, lowering business costs, and improving the health of employees and other stakeholders. Given the power of business in American society, efforts to improve community health and recover and then extend economic prosperity will be insufficient without actions by business leaders.

The central story of the Covid-19 pandemic is one of health inequity. Black Americans have experienced higher rates and more severe cases than white Americans, and overall Covid-19 has been more prevalent among people of color. The roots of these inequities are not new; they lie in a long history of marginalization and disenfranchisement dating back centuries. Black Americans in particular live shorter, sicker lives than do white Americans.
While there has been much discussion of Black-white health disparities over recent decades, the solutions that are regularly proposed involve efforts to improve the health care system on its own. But this is not enough. The Biden administration can work toward rectifying fundamental health inequities by moving us toward Black reparations. Reparations can take many forms, ranging from ideas like baby bonds to cash transfers to adults, either of which would at least help to improve the current state of affairs. The Biden administration can, early in its tenure, establish a high-level commission to assess the best approach to implement Black reparations, to conduct return-on-investment analyses and to make the case to the country that we will not, in any foreseeable future, narrow health inequities without some form of Black reparations.

Authored by Sandro Galea, Lawrence O. Gostin, Alan B. Cohen, and Nicole Lurie.

The arrival of the first COVID-19 vaccines and of new Presidential leadership mark important turning points in the pandemic. President-elect Biden announced Rochelle Walensky, an infectious disease expert, as his nominee for CDC director, and policymakers are turning their attention to revitalizing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as well as the nation’s public health system at the state/tribal/local level. While a comprehensive blueprint for public health reform will take time, we outline eight key operational steps to revitalize the CDC. CDC’s renewal is imperative after a suboptimal performance during the pandemic, while also being politically undermined by the Trump administration.

Overnight, the first Covid-19 vaccines in a Western country delivered outside a clinical trial were given to patients in the UK. Today, we can say, to paraphrase a former British Prime Minister, that we are at the beginning of the end of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the months since the emergence of Covid-19, the world has been through some previously unimaginable changes. We have changed how we work, live, and play. Stay-at-home orders and guidance, and fear of the virus, have restricted where we can go and what we can do, the crisis seeming to stretch indefinitely. We are still very much in the thick of this challenge. Cases and deaths continue to rise and the indications are that this winter will be a hard one. However, as we end 2020, all signs suggest that this moment will, too, pass, that the time is coming when the Covid-19 pandemic will be a matter of historical record rather than daily struggle. The development of safe and effective vaccines and the efforts currently underway to widely distribute them mark a moment when we can finally say that the pandemic not only will not last forever, but that it will likely not even last until the end of summer. At the same time, the incoming Biden administration represents a chance for a political reset, an opportunity to navigate the end of the pandemic in a way that rejects counterproductive approaches and lays the foundations for a healthier world.