The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the continued divide between the public health departments and the communities they serve. Why has it been ¹so hard to articulate a public health message to help keep our communities safe? Public health departments do not connect or build trusting relationships with their community. If the work of connecting with our communities were built before the pandemic, our COVID-19 messaging would have been better received.
It seems that the lessons of Hurricane Katrina were not learned and definitely not put into practice around the country. For communities, especially vulnerable communities, trust must be established with communities before they will heed public warning and action. But as the crisis of Katrina was no longer in the public view the call for action grew silent.
The truth of the matter is that too many local health departments are unfounded and there is no political will outside of times of crisis to adequately fund health departments to build trusting partnerships within communities. As we seen with this crisis, COVID-19 pandemic has caused more division and mistrust of the public health sector; the crisis has become politicalized which has had a negative effect on messaging and the ability to decrease the magnitude of its effect in terms of infections and deaths.
The time to prepare for the next pandemic or public health crisis is now. Health departments should begin to plan activities with community partners to build a trusting relationship and foster mutual respect. But as the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic is no longer in the public view the call for action will grow silent.
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