NEW YORK, Jan. 26, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- In response to
the disproportionate and devastating impact COVID-19 has had on
Black communities and other underserved communities of color, the
first of many "Choose Healthy Life" COVID-19 testing, vaccine
awareness and education events took place at the historic
Abyssinian Baptist Church in
Harlem, January 25th. At
the event Reverend Al Sharpton and
Reverend Jacques DeGraff were
tested to demonstrate the continued importance and ease of testing,
even as vaccines begin to be available.
Quest Diagnostics (NYSE: DGX), in partnership with the
Choose Healthy Life Black Clergy Action Plan and the
United Way of New York
City, provided the testing at this event and will
support similar activities in New York
City, Atlanta, Detroit, Newark and Washington, DC. over the coming months.
"Testing will continue to play an essential role over the coming
months in diagnosing COVID-19 and helping to prevent its continued
spread," said Steve Rusckowski,
Chairman, CEO and President of Quest Diagnostics. "Our work
with our partners Choose Healthy Life and the United Way of
New York City will help save lives
and help stop the disproportionate devastation COVID-19 is wreaking
on the Black community is both urgent and necessary. Quest
Diagnostics is focused on taking action to address health
inequities across our country."
Despite the recent introduction of vaccines in the United States, COVID-19 testing is still
critical. One year after the first case of COVID-19 in the United States, there remains a tremendous
need for access to testing to help prevent the virus' spread and to
ensure that those impacted get access to treatments sooner and
continue to protect the health of the community. As the number of
COVID-19 cases continue to rise, testing will continue to have a
significant impact on both local and national public health
policies, travel restrictions, return to school and offices – all
of which directly impact our country's economy.
Rochelle Walensky, M.D., the
Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has
recently called to expand availability of COVID-19 testing, even as
vaccines are being rolled out. The United
States needs to quickly ramp up the amount and pace of
COVID-19 testing and vaccinations to bring the current outbreak
under control, Dr. Walensky noted in her first official statement.
"Better, healthier days lie ahead. But to get there, COVID-19
testing, surveillance, and vaccination must accelerate rapidly,"
Dr. Walensky said in a statement. "We must also confront the
longstanding public health challenges of social and racial
injustice and inequity that have demanded action for far too
long."
All too often, underserved communities have been testing deserts
during the pandemic. "Equity doesn't happen by default," said
Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith,
chair of President Biden's Health Equity Task Force at a
recent Conclave held by Choose Healthy Life to launch testing in
hard hit, underserved communities. At the Conclave, Dr. Nunez-Smith
explained that COVID-19 testing remains a critical element in
slowing the spread and tragic impact of the disease, even as
vaccines are distributed. "A majority of Black Americans are
showing up at hospitals, having never had a COVID-19 test, often
with an infection that has progressed so far that antibody therapy
is no longer an effective treatment. Testing for COVID has never
been more critical," said Dr. Smith.
According to a report from the Boston Consulting Group,
even if current and future vaccines prove their effectiveness, the
need to test for COVID-19 will continue in order to: quickly
diagnose symptomatic patients; monitor the spread of disease to
larger groups; protect vulnerable populations such as the elderly;
provide access to return to work or travel on public transportation
and test for immunity from vaccines.
"Because testing remains essential in the fight against this
pandemic, it's critical that we make testing easily accessible as
COVID-19 continues to devastate Black communities," said
Debra Frazer-Howze, founder of
Choose Healthy Life. "We know from experience that leadership
from the Black clergy makes all the difference when it comes to
building trust in our communities, and we are grateful for their
essential support."
"United Way of New York City is
proud to be working together with Choose Healthy Life, leveraging
our expertise in convening and mobilizing the best of the
nonprofit, corporate and public health sectors to provide needed
COVID-19 testing to communities of color, beginning in five major
cities across the United States,"
said Sheena Wright, President and
CEO of United Way of New York
City.
Quest's involvement with Choose Healthy Life is part of a larger
Quest for Health Equity (Q4HE), a multi-year commitment
the company announced in 2020 to close health disparities, starting
with COVID-19. Q4HE is Quest's long-term commitment to utilize
testing and information to address critical health issues that
disproportionately impact underserved communities, such as heart
disease, diabetes, and COPD.
According to a recent Quest Diagnostics Health Trends™ report
entitled "COVID-19: Magnifying Racial Disparities in U.S.
Healthcare," Black Americans view greater testing access as
critical to getting the pandemic better under control. Nearly 3 in
4 Black Americans (73%) surveyed view greater access to diagnostic
COVID-19 testing as absolutely essential or very important to
slowing the pandemic.
In addition to COVID-19 testing, Quest Diagnostics will work
with the Choose Healthy Life Black Clergy Action Plan to provide
education and guidance to community members in each of the cities
with testing sites. This will include empowering and funding teams
of "health navigators" – local outreach specialists – to engage
their neighbors, build trust and provide critical information to
help reduce the destructive toll that COVID-19 is taking on Black
communities. Dr. Nunez-Smith emphasized that work must be done to
build trust with vulnerable populations via the clergy and
culturally relevant local healthcare workers.
Note to media: Footage of the event can be viewed on the
Quest Diagnostics newsroom site
About Quest Diagnostics
Quest Diagnostics empowers people to take action to improve health
outcomes. Derived from the world's largest database of
clinical lab results, our diagnostic insights reveal new avenues to
identify and treat disease, inspire healthy behaviors and
improve health care management. Quest Diagnostics annually
serves one in three adult Americans and half the physicians
and hospitals in the United
States, and our 47,000 employees understand that, in
the right hands and with the right context, our diagnostic insights
can inspire actions that transform lives.
www.QuestDiagnostics.com.
About Choose Healthy Life
Choose Healthy Life Black Clergy Action Plan is a program developed
by D. Fraser Associates (DFA) based on the DFA Choose
Healthy Life Standard – a sustainable, scalable and transferable
approach to public health. The highly successful Standard was
created by Debra Fraser-Howze,
principal at DFA and founder of the National Black Leadership
Commission on AIDS, to address the AIDS epidemic. It is centered
around the Black church – the oldest and most trusted
institutions in the Black community. Partnering with
the United Way agencies, local health departments and
community-based organizations, churches receive the necessary
resources, training and support to make available health services
to the region's most vulnerable individuals. The Choose
Healthy Life Black Clergy Action Plan has been made possible
through the support of founding sponsors Quest Diagnostics and
the Quest Diagnostics Foundation, and from Resolve to Save Lives,
a global health initiative focused on helping advance
scalable, proven strategies to prevent and address epidemics.
To learn more, visit: www.ChooseHealthyLife.org
About United Way of New York City
United Way of New York City
(UWNYC) fights for the self-sufficiency of every low-income New
Yorker by taking on the toughest challenges and creating new
solutions to old problems. We win by helping families shift
from barely surviving to thriving. We unite by mobilizing the best
ideas, relevant data, internal and external experts, and
resources—from money to manpower. UWNYC maximizes impact by
coordinating and aligning organizations, companies, local
government, and New Yorkers to help families eliminate tough
choices and live better while making ends meet. To learn more,
visit: www.unitedwaynyc.org.
View original content to download
multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/with-covid-19-on-the-rise-amid-vaccine-shortages-black-clergy-join-national-effort-to-ramp-up-covid-19-testing-in-communities-hardest-hit-by-coronavirus-301215584.html
SOURCE Quest Diagnostics