Gotham Gazette

The Place for New York Policy and politics

public health

public health

  • De Blasio Outlines Spending Plan for $5.9 Billion in Direct Federal Pandemic Aid

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    Mayor de Blasio's 'recovery budget' was helped by federal aid (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


    Since the March passage of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, the nation's most recent pandemic-era stimulus package, de Blasio administration officials have been crafting a plan to use close to $5.9 billion in direct federal funding to New York City government.

    A new report from the de Blasio administration, required by the federal stimulus

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  • Adults Need to Grow Up If We Want to Keep Our Kids Safe

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    Back to school (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


    We’ve all seen the news lately. It’s rife with images of chaotic school board meetings and rallies starring adults engaged in tantrums, which we would never tolerate from our children. Every parent wants what they believe is best for their children. However, if we want them to get back to school safely, the adults in the metaphorical room need to stop fighting and adhere to public health guidelines.

    As health care professionals, our message is that children should safely

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  • Report Takes Closer Look at Low-Income New Yorkers' Concerns About Long-Term Covid Impacts

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    New Yorkers lined up for food (photo: Emil Cohen/City Council)


    Newly-released survey data confirms lower-income New Yorkers were far more worried about the long-term effects of the pandemic and its economic fallout than their moderate- and higher-income counterparts after the pandemic's first and most devastating peak last spring.

    According to a study conducted by Community Service Society -- a nonprofit advocating for

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  • Time for a Reset for New York City Food Policy; Here’s 6 Key Steps

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    New York City food (photo: William Alatriste/City Council)


    In less than six months, a new Mayor and dozens of City Council members will join their returning colleagues to chart a course for governing the city in the coming years. Even sooner, a new New York Governor will need to determine her priorities. While policy options on public safety, education, and restoring the economy have attracted headlines, food policy is another challenge that requires attention from our elected officials.

    As the Delta variant jeopardizes the city’s public health, the

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  • City Council Goes More Than 5 Months Without Oversight Hearing on Covid Vaccination Effort

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    City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and Health Chair Mark Levine (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


    After weeks of flagging covid vaccine rates, ongoing racial disparities among the vaccinated, and the troubling spread of the Delta variant, Mayor Bill de Blasio is taking his first steps to impose more coercive vaccine policies in New York City. The mayor announced on Monday an upcoming mandate for all city workers to be vaccinated or subject to weekly covid testing, while encouraging private sector actors to institute their own

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  • Amid Rising Overdoses, Mental Health and Harm Reduction Support More Important Than Ever

    Gotham Gazette: Amid rising overdoses, mental health and harm reduction support is more important

    The Mayor at an overdose prevention event (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


    I know what it’s like to be on the front lines of an infectious disease. I launched my career in harm reduction in the 1980s, at the height of the HIV epidemic. Just like with HIV, the fallout from COVID-19 is not limited to the lives we’ve lost to the infection itself—there are ripple effects that will be felt long after our city fully re-opens.

    This time, it’s the twin tragedy of the

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  • Let’s Give New Yorkers Sweet Transparency — Lives are At Risk

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    Fast food drinks (photo: @brraveheart)


    A fast-food combo meal, perfect for lunch in a New York minute, right? Not so fast. A recent study of fast-food chain restaurants found that the default drink size included with combo meals at most restaurants contains more than an entire day’s worth of added sugars.

    With New Yorkers resorting to fast food out of convenience or necessity due to limited access to healthier options, it becomes an issue of public health and equity

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  • Primary Voters Must Consider Public Health in the Voting Booth

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    Vaccination (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


    For the first time in more than a year, New Yorkers are starting to see a light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel. The city is finally leaping toward the promised “new normal” as basketball fans flood arenas and restaurant patrons spill into the streets with fewer worries about masking up and keeping distance. When our next mayor and City Council take office in January, we’re optimistic that the covid pandemic will be truly behind us.

    But for many New Yorkers, the health

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  • How the Next City Council Can Prepare Communities for the Next Pandemic

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    Emergency department (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office )


    As New York finally begins to lift health restrictions related to the novel coronavirus, the next generation of leaders need to take the necessary steps to ensure that when, not if, another pandemic comes to our communities we are better prepared. Unfortunately, this time around too many communities of color, like in Southeast Queens, lacked the necessary resources and infrastructure to effectively handle this crisis; we cannot let that happen again.

    Fortunately

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  • We Must Support Research to Help Combat Long-Haul COVID-19 and the Next Pandemic

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    Taking on covid (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    By now, every New Yorker knows someone who has been infected with COVID-19 or has had it themselves. Since the start of this pandemic, over 800,000 New York City residents have had a positive test. And a year into the fight against this disease, we know that the battle is far from over, as New Yorkers grapple with the effects of ...

  • At-Risk Communities Need a Covid Hero to Protect Critical Federal Resources

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    Gov. Cuomo (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)


    Governor Cuomo has worked hard to cultivate a national reputation as the Emmy Award-winning hero of his own covid reality show – so why is he stripping federal resources from hospitals, clinics, and health centers on the front lines of the crisis? 

    Last year, the Cuomo Administration included a provision in the state budget that would cost safety net providers an estimated $154 million in federal resources the first year and $1.5 billion over five years. This Albany accounting

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  • Democratic Mayoral Candidates Discuss Addressing City’s Health Care Gaps After Covid

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    Top (l-r): Carlos Menchaca, Dianne Morales, Scott Stringer, Loree Sutton, Maya Wiley,
    Bottom (l-r): Eric Adams, Shaun Donovan, Kathryn Garcia, Ray McGuire, Andrew Yang


    Eleven Democratic candidates for mayor appeared at a virtual forum on Tuesday focused on how they would shape health policy to be more equitable in New York City, especially amidst and in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which has brought the city’s health care infrastructure under considerable strain and has had a starkly unequal racial impact. The pandemic has thrust the issues of

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  • Why Didn't New York's Hardest Hit Communities Receive Covid Vaccine Priority?

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    The covid vaccine (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


    The first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic devastated Black, Latino, and immigrant communities across New York City at disproportionate levels last spring and since. Some lawmakers are now asking why the same populations were not included in vaccine priority plans crafted by the state and city.

    At a January 12 City Council oversight hearing on the de Blasio administration's roll-out of the first batches of the covid vaccine, members of the Council’s committees on hospitals and health asked the city's top

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  • De Blasio Excuses for Slow Vaccine Rollout Contradict Prior City Statements of Readiness

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    Mayor de Blasio vaccine promises (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


    Three weeks after New York City received its first batch of COVID-19 vaccines, and more than five weeks after officials knew when they were coming, only a third of the half-million doses had been dolled out, raising questions about why the city wasn't more prepared to step into "the light at the end of the tunnel."

    That has been a favorite phrase of Mayor Bill de Blasio since he signaled the city was on the verge of receiving the life-saving, pandemic-ending treatment over a month ago.

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  • ‘Forsaken Land:’ City and State Officials Mum on Covid Vaccination Plans for Incarcerated New Yorkers and Correction Officers

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    Gov. Cuomo visits a prison, pre-pandemic (photo: Mike Groll/Governor's Office)


    While New York continues to expand the circle of groups eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, people living and working in correctional facilities are being left out of the equation, despite early commitments from the city's Health Department and the heightened risk of infection in those settings.

    With a limited supply of the vaccine, public health officials at the state and city levels have been developing a plan to prioritize populations that are most exposed

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  • Creating a New Hub to Protect and Empower Brooklynites

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    Supplies arrive in Brooklyn (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    Every neighborhood in New York City has been touched in some way by the COVID-19 pandemic. But due to longstanding disparities in our health-care system and structural economic inequality, communities of color have been more susceptible to the virus and more vulnerable to its consequences. 

    One of these consequences was the distant and dysfunctional health-care supply system, which left safety net hospitals like One Brooklyn Health, which serve and employ the city’s most vulnerable, without

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  • We Must Not Return to ‘Normal’: Seizing Our Opportunity to Rethink Health and Health Care in New York

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    Health care workers during covid (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    Last month, Governor Andrew Cuomo delivered remarks at Riverside Church on the inequities in the Trump administration's COVID-19 vaccine distribution plan. He admirably stated that we must prioritize fairness and equity. Communities like many in the Bronx that have suffered the most because of this virus must not be left behind. But that commitment to leaving no community behind must also be applied to addressing the underlying issues that led to disproportionately negative outcomes for

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  • New York Must Not Exacerbate Disparities Again: Key Considerations for Equity in Covid Vaccination

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    Covid field site (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    There are many high-stakes questions to be sorted out in the design of the coming covid vaccination distribution program. But there’s one issue that’s not receiving enough attention: How can we design a plan that avoids exacerbating pre-existing racial inequities and instead meaningfully advances equity?

    It’s essential that we answer this question — now.

    Vaccine distribution will be the most complicated implementation challenge of this pandemic, even

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  • Without Random Testing, New York City and State Address Covid Outbreaks with Blinders

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    Mayor de Blasio gets tested (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography)


    As New York City public health officials try to get a handle on a series of COVID-19 “hot spots,” they lack the tools to know exactly how the voluntary testing data they collect skews the true prevalence of the virus, both in communities of concern and city-wide. In the absence of randomized testing, public health officials rely on the results of voluntary testing, an especially challenging process given new evidence some New Yorkers are organizing to game the system against that weakness.

    New York's

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  • De Blasio Administration Fails to Provide Proper Reentry Services for Those Leaving Jail Amid Pandemic, Providers Say

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    The mayor at a jails to jobs announcement (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    For Julio Medina, the onset of the coronavirus outbreak in New York City was going to pose a unique set of challenges. As executive director at the Exodus Transitional Community, Medina focuses on support and services for the formerly incarcerated, or re-entry services. When Rikers Island became one of the most densely COVID-19-infected areas, the city released over 1,500 people either being detained pre-trial or toward the end of their short sentences. But, advocates and service-providers say, a

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  • Rebuilding A Stronger, Healthier New York Through Science

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    Mapping community concerns that science can help address


    Any true New Yorker knows the question is not if New York City will rebuild from COVID-19, but how and when. In order to genuinely build back a better, more sustainable, equitable, and resilient city there has never been more need for effective partnerships between communities, government, and experts. 

    Science for New York aims to overcome these challenges on a local scale in New York City. We are scientists who volunteer our skills to translate technical and analytical

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  • Covid Must Change How We Handle Rikers and the Future of Jails in New York City

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    Council Member Carline Rivera, the author (photo: Emil Cohen/City Council)


    Like most New Yorkers who lived through the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, I am still reeling from the trauma and chaos we experienced this spring. But until I set foot on Rikers Island last week, I had an incomplete understanding of what the true horrors of COVID-19 were for some of our most vulnerable New Yorkers.

    At the height of the pandemic, Rikers saw an infection ...

  • Randomized Testing Would Best Assess Covid Spread, Epidemiologists Say, But New York Isn't Doing It

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    Coronavirus testing (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    As coronavirus cases continue to spike across the country, Governor Andrew Cuomo has touted 38 days straight in New York with a statewide covid-positivity rate below 1 percent. The metrics hold center stage in conversations about reopening New York City's schools and dining rooms, two of the biggest and most uncertain next frontiers in the region's socioeconomic restart.

    "Testing is a cornerstone of our efforts to keep New Yorkers safe from COVID-19,” the governor said in a statement

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  • Black Mothers Matter: Bringing Justice to Maternity — Now

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    Deep and deadly health care disparities persist (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayor's Office)


    In December of 2019, Sha-Asia Washington joyfully announced her pregnancy to her mother. In December of 2018 I had done the same. Throughout the Spring of 2020, she and her boyfriend counted down the days until her June due date. I had done the same in 2019. As she neared her due date, she went into the hospital with high

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  • Housing is Health, We Must Support It As Such — Especially Now

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    Health and housing are inextricably linked (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    The nationwide protests over the past few months are a response to the tragic murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers -- and to the longstanding racial injustices plaguing our nation. Among these systemic crises is housing inequity and its impact on health.

    Millions of people nationwide lack stable housing due to extremely high rent, domestic issues such as living with an abuser, or various other causes. In New York specifically, hundreds

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