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Dr. Robinson discusses Community Impact of COVID-19 with Charli Penn.
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00:00Hello, my name is Charlie Penn. I am the White Relationships and Wellness Director here at Essence.
00:05On behalf of Vaseline and Essence, I welcome you and thank you for joining this important discussion.
00:12Vaseline is a brand that has provided healing for over 150 years and understands that right now,
00:19more than ever, it's important to live by that principle, take action, and provide much-needed
00:24resources and support to our community. This year has been challenging for everyone, especially
00:31for Black communities. We've seen the deadly impact social injustice has had on Black people.
00:38On top of that, COVID-19 has raised other challenges for us, as it disproportionately has impacted the
00:44Black and Latinx community. Not because we're more susceptible to the virus, but because systematic
00:50racism is deeply rooted in our nation, which also impacts access to quality medical care for these
00:56communities. Vaseline acknowledges these challenges and is committed truly to making a difference and
01:02taking action. Here with me today is Vaseline Dermatologist Partner, Dr. Caroline Robinson,
01:08who will give more insight into how health inequalities affect our communities and the impact that Vaseline
01:14is making in partnership with Direct Relief. Hello, Dr. Robinson, and welcome to
01:20Hi, Charlie. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you so much for being here. I'm
01:26really looking forward to this important conversation that we're going to have. So let's just jump right
01:30on in. What do you say? Absolutely. I'm looking forward to it, too. So really, just tell me more
01:36about yourself. Take us through who you are, a bit about your background and your partnership with
01:41Vaseline. Absolutely. So, Charlie, for anyone watching, my name is Dr. Robinson. I'm a board-certified
01:49dermatologist based in Chicago. I'm also the founder of Tone Dermatology, which is my practice.
01:55And a little more about me and my practice, my specialty areas are alopecia, which is hair loss,
02:02and also ethnic skin dermatology. So that's dermatology that specifically addresses issues
02:09of the skin and hair that impact diverse communities of color the most. And part of that passion is what
02:16brings me here today for this important conversation that you so well laid the floor for. But I think that
02:24health and health care disparities and particularly inequities in representation within the field of
02:31medicine can help to address some of the issues that we are noticing coming to surface of late. And I am also a
02:40Vaseline partner. And in that partnership with Vaseline and the partnership that they have with
02:46direct relief, we have really worked to bring awareness to the aid that direct relief is providing
02:53to organizations that help reduce the health disparities specifically. Absolutely. And I mean,
02:58we hear you. It's like we say sometimes here at Essence, it's like when we're covering all these
03:02disease states and everything that's happening, it feels like Black people are disproportionately affected by
03:07everything, right? Like you're saying, it's in every area. And that's why impact is so important,
03:12you know, especially for everyone and access. So for those that don't know, direct relief is a
03:17humanitarian organization active in all 50 states in the U.S. and 90 other countries globally,
03:23providing donations of medicine, supplies to those most in need. And with Vaseline being a longstanding
03:29partner with direct relief, are you able to share more on how brands like Vaseline have been helping make an
03:35impact during this pandemic? Yes, absolutely. So Vaseline has partnered with direct relief in the
03:41Vaseline Healing Project. And during the COVID times, the main form of the giving back and donating
03:50has been to increase the amount of PPE. And so there have been hundreds of thousands of dollars that
03:58they've donated in getting PPE products to protect workers in the healthcare centers that are so
04:07important in communities of color. And direct relief is the largest charitable provider of PPE. I don't know
04:13if anyone knew that, but they have been, yeah, they've been producing this equipment for pre-COVID,
04:21you know, before the U.S. response was available. And partners like Vaseline have really stepped up
04:27to providing much needed funding to purchase the additional PPE that's been needed to keep our
04:34health centers safe. So it's interesting that you talk about, you know, how it disproportionately
04:39affects the community and data, right? Because we really need to look at the data there and talk
04:44about it. And growing data shows that Black and Latinx Americans bear the brunt of these healthcare
04:49disparities. Why do you think these inequalities continue to manifest in the dermatology space and
04:55also just in the general health landscape? Yeah, I think it's really important to understand that
05:01the healthcare disparities and the determinants of health and healthcare outcomes are really nuanced
05:07in our nation. So just as we're seeing inequalities in other areas, we see those inequalities reflected
05:16in medicine as well because of the systemic racism that is pervasive in our nation. So within medicine,
05:24we see important disparities that we need to bring awareness to. For example, outside of dermatology
05:33in women's health, we see that Black women have a higher rate of maternal death. So when they're
05:39delivering, they're four times higher than national average at risk of dying during child labor. And also we
05:48see high, a higher rate in infant death and infertility that's also affecting the Black female community.
05:56And when we see these disparities, we can separate out, you know, different like socioeconomic and
06:03different factors. And we still see these disparities persist, which like I said, brings us back to the
06:09question, the issue of systemic racism. So outside of women's health, we can see this in cardiology. We see that
06:16with heart failure, Black patients are affected more, Black men specifically. We can see that in terms of
06:24stroke, Black communities are affected more. And when we're looking at the representation within the
06:32field of medicine, we see disparities there. We see disparities that only 5% to 6% of U.S. physicians
06:40are Black, and only 5.8% are Latinx. And within dermatology, the numbers are worse. Sadly, in 2007
06:50study, there were only 3% of dermatologists who were practicing actively were Black, and 4.2% were Latinx.
07:01So in order to address all of these issues, I think we really need to address representation. We need to
07:09address the core of the disparities, which is systemic racism.
07:14So Dr. Robinson, how was your personal practice affected during the pandemic?
07:20Yeah, so it was actually interesting. A lot of dermatologists, including myself,
07:27felt the need to scale back and even close our practices to encourage social distancing.
07:35We initially started by canceling any non-essential surgeries, encouraging people to delay their
07:42cosmetic procedures, for example, to begin to encourage that social distancing. And then as the
07:48pandemic escalated, I personally saw a spike in certain conditions, like our healthcare workers,
07:55our frontline workers were developing rashes, skin damage from the PPE. And so we were going to a lot
08:03of basic skincare and preventative care advice for them. Then as the pandemic progressed further,
08:11we've seen an uptick in what we're calling maskne, where basically there's a spike in acne lesions under
08:20the mask because of the oil and occlusion that occurs from chronic mask wearing. We've also seen
08:26some direct skin conditions that are related to COVID, which include the COVID toes, which is a poorly
08:32understood inflammatory reaction that the skin on the toes have as a result of the virus. So a lot of
08:41a lot of things, a lot of changes to my practice and how we operate, but also in the conditions that we're
08:47seeing, we've implemented virtual care as well to make it more accessible to patients and, and again,
08:54encouraging the social distancing. No, and you're, and as you say, you know, we've seen people talk
08:58about COVID toes. Definitely. I remember like we were over washing our hands, right? Because we were afraid.
09:04So my knuckles were cracking, you know, my peeling, you know, our skin was reacting to, you know, the
09:12situation. Exactly. And I'm glad that you bring that up because it's just another thing,
09:16right. That we have to be aware of and careful with, and speaking of being careful,
09:20what's your best advice to the black and Latinx communities at this time, as far as staying safe?
09:26Yeah. So just as you mentioned, we absolutely did see that outbreak in the handwashing, but
09:32just, just because we have started to open up in some areas, we shouldn't decrease that effort. We
09:38should continue to practice those good handwashing and sanitizing practices that we've been doing.
09:4520 seconds. 20 seconds. Choose your song. Let's go. Keep it going.
09:52And of course, mask wearing is now a important step that we should all be doing when we leave our house,
09:59putting on our mask, when we are around people keeping that distance, and also just wearing a mask,
10:06not doing any, any activities that we don't absolutely have to do during this time, because
10:13there's a lot that we don't know about the virus still, and we haven't seen the full impact. We're
10:18still within the pandemic. So we absolutely should be keeping ourselves safe. Absolutely. Thank you so
10:25much for that advice. So helpful. So Dr. Robinson, COVID-19 continues to hit the United States so, so,
10:32so hard. We've all seen the news stories. We continue to see a rise in areas across the country,
10:38especially in the South and the West. It's super scary, you know, and according to the CDC,
10:43Black people account for over 33% of all reported COVID-19 related hospitalizations,
10:50while Latinx people also count for 74.3 deaths per every 100,000 within the population. Do you think that
10:57this is, can you talk a little bit about the why that leads to that? You know, is it the essential
11:02workers? Is it just the community spread? Let's, let's talk about why that is. Yeah, yeah. And those
11:09stats are exactly right. They're, the Black, I mean, it's scary. They're being impacted at a greater rate
11:18than other communities. And we see that this issue is also nuanced, right? So we see that our essential
11:26workers are, their, their high risk position is a component of this impact, but we also see that
11:35the Black and Brown communities are also in positions where they cannot, the wage gap, they cannot take the
11:45time they need to work from home. They cannot afford to take off work to socially, to properly social
11:54distance. We're seeing all of the effects that systemic racism has essentially created. Housing areas
12:03that are predominantly Black or Brown have poor air, poor air quality, more crowded housing. So the issue
12:14is really deep and it's, and it's coming to surface with the recent pandemic and as well as the second
12:21pandemic as I tend to call it, which is the racial injustice that's coming, that's been coming up
12:27lately. And we have to live to survive, but it's hard to survive living. Yeah, exactly. Well,
12:35Dr. Robinson, thank you so, so, so much for taking the time today to have such an important conversation
12:41with the essence audience. It was so important that we talk about this. And although the city is
12:47across the country, continue to open up, we're still in the middle of the pandemic. So we encourage
12:52everyone to stay safe, continue to practice with social distancing, take care of yourself on the
12:57safety tips and safety tips. And to find out more about Vaseline, you can visit Vaseline.com. Have a
13:06great rest of your day and thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me.
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