Social Medicine statement on Nikole Hannah-Jones

Arlene M. Davis, JD Arlene M. Davis, JD, associate professor in the UNC Department of Social Medicine and director of the Clinical Ethics Service at UNC Hospitals, has been named director of the UNC Center for Bioethics, effective July 1. https://news.unchealthcare.org/2021/06/davis-named-director-of-unc-center-for-bioethics/

Mara Buchbinder, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Social Medicine, is the author of a new book, Scripting Death: Stories of Assisted Dying in America, which will be published in May by the University of California Press. Mara Buchbinder, PhD https://news.unchealthcare.org/2021/04/new-book-by-mara-buchbinder-to-be-published-in-may/ Here’s how the publisher describes the book in a press release: “Scripting Death … Continued

Vaccine hesitancy and mistrust of medicine and science dominate current discourse around disparities in who is currently receiving COVID-19 vaccines, a potentially lifesaving prevention strategy. Mistrust of medicine and science is based in a long and sordid history of unethical practice and research on African American, Latinx, Indigenous, and Asian American populations in this country. … Continued

  Giselle Corbie-Smith, MD, MSc, Director of the UNC Center for Health Equity Research, was a panelists on WRAL’s “On the Record” Overcoming vaccine reluctance. The panel, led by Lena Tillett, discussed the roots of vaccine hesitancy and refusal and how to overcome these challenges.   https://www.wral.com/on-the-record-march-13-2021-overcoming-vaccine-reluctance/19578416/

A coronavirus variant was detected for the first time inside a U.S. prison. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/02/11/world/covid-19-coronavirus/a-coronavirus-variant-was-detected-for-the-first-time-inside-a-us-prison

Mara Buchbinder, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Social Medicine, authored an opinion piece titled, “Society’s End-of-Life Problem,” which was published February 10 on the website of Scientific American.

The Coronavirus Vaccine Presents a Dilemma for Pregnant Women https://www.newyorker.com/science/medical-dispatch/the-coronavirus-vaccine-presents-a-dilemma-for-pregnant-women

Jill A. Fisher, is professor of social medicine in the Center for Bioethics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The novel coronavirus and its devastating effects have starkly exposed U.S. racial and ethnic health disparities. For access to article click here

UNC School of Medicine’s Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein co-wrote an opinion piece on CNN.com with Senator Elizabeth Warren and Kathryn Nowotny, a sociologist at the University of Miami. Brinkley-Rubinstein and Nowotny are co-founders of the COVID Prison Project. For access to article click here