As the United States hit the gruesome milestone of 200,000 deaths from COVID-19, program director Thoai Ngo and colleagues Charlotte Brasseux and Mingqi Song share in Think Global Health how “woefully inadequate and inconsistent data collection and reporting efforts” have hindered the country’s ability to successfully employ targeted efforts to control the spread of COVID-19.
With a new analysis, which builds on previous analyses of COVID-19-related data collection efforts in the United States, the authors share new findings, which show minor improvements and continued weaknesses in data reporting on key socio-demographic indicators. They point out how these limitations will ultimately shape the ability of the country to address rising cases numbers, hospitalizations and deaths.
“A standardized COVID-19 data collection system can no longer wait if we want to suppress COVID-19 and understand how to tackle health inequity during the pandemic and beyond. American lives depend on it.”
Read their powerful piece now in Think Global Health.