The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has substantially damaged population health, social fabrics, economies, and health systems across the world. In the United States, many of these costs are overwhelmingly borne by racially marginalized populations. These groups report disproportionately higher levels of COVID-19 morbidity and mortality as a result of ineffective response efforts and decades-long failures to address longstanding inequities in access to healthcare and other social safety net programs. Peer-reviewed research that examines the root causes of racial inequities in COVID-19-associated morbidity and mortality—and the systems that perpetuate them—is urgently needed.
In its May/June 2021 issue, Health Security will be devoting an open access special feature to examining how systemic racism is manifested in the practice of health security in the United States and how it has affected preparedness for, responses to, and recovery from COVID-19. We seek original analyses of methods, programs and program implementation, research efforts, and systems approaches addressing systemic racism in US health security and epidemic response policymaking and practice. Narrative or conceptual reviews of specific policies related to systemic racism in health security are also welcome. Any racially marginalized population in the United States—including, but not limited to, Black, Latinx, Asian, American Indian, and Alaska Native populations—may be the focus of submitted manuscripts. Analyses of intersections between these groups and other dimensions of vulnerability—such as incarceration, statelessness, unemployment, or homelessness—as they relate to COVID-19 preparedness, detection, response, and recovery in the United States are also welcome. We especially encourage submissions from women, underrepresented minority scholars in health security, and scholars with disabilities.
Potential topics of interest include:
Submissions addressing other effects of systemic racism in health security as they relate to COVID-19 in the United States are also welcome.
Questions concerning this special feature may be directed to Lane Warmbrod (klwarmbrod@jhu.edu) or Sanjana Ravi (sanjana@jhu.edu).
Health Security, published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., is a bi‐monthly peer‐reviewed journal, now in its 18th year of publication. It serves as an international forum for debate and exploration of the key strategic, scientific, and operational issues posed by biological weapons, pandemics and emerging infectious diseases, natural disasters, and other threats to global health. The journal provides multidisciplinary analyses and perspectives essential to the creation of strategies and programs that can diminish the consequences of health emergencies, epidemics, and disasters.
The journal’s international audience includes those professional communities that have strategic, scientific, or operational responsibilities critical to improving health security, including medicine, public health, law, national security, bioscientific research, agriculture, food safety, and drug and vaccine development.
Health Security is indexed in MEDLINE; PubMed; PubMed Central; Current Contents®/Social & Behavioral Sciences; Social Sciences Citation Index®; Social SciSearch®; Journal Citation Reports/Social Sciences Edition; EMBASE/Excerpta Medica; EMBiology; Scopus; ProQuest; CAB Abstracts; and Global Health.
Information for authors: The special journal section devoted to systemic racism and health security will be published in the May/June 2021 issue of Health Security. Scholarly and review articles, descriptions of practice, and opinion and commentary pieces are welcome. Commentaries should be no longer than 2,500 words, and original articles no longer than 5,000 words, exclusive of the abstract, tables, figures, and references. Please consult the journal website for specific submission instructions (http://www.liebertpub.com/manuscript/hs).
Deadline for article submission: Papers must be submitted by January 31, 2021, to https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/healthsecurity.