In the News: Shannon Monnat

"It’s not just the rural health care infrastructure that becomes overwhelmed when there aren’t enough hospital beds, it’s also the surrounding neighborhoods, the suburbs, the urban hospital infrastructure starts to become overwhelmed as well," says Shannon Monnat, Lerner Chair for Public Health Promotion.

"If we want people to feel comfortable enough to go back out to bars and restaurants, to travel, and to send their kids to school, we need to see a decline in cases, and people need to feel confident that their peers will behave responsibly for the greater good," says Shannon Monnat, Lerner Chair for Public Health Promotion.

"The president has been asking Americans to deny what they see happening right in front of them. People are tired. They want to see some leadership and a coordinated national coronavirus response," says Shannon Monnat, Lerner Chair for Public Health Promotion.

“The COVID pandemic is a great example of a current event that is changing every aspect of society—from how families are organized to how we deliver education and the structure of work,” says Professor of Public Administration and International Affairs Colleen Heflin.

In the U.S., rural mortality rates are much higher than those in urban areas, and the gap has widened in recent years. Several causes of death are to blame.

"This is news to me, and it's disturbing," says Shannon Monnat, Lerner Chair for Public Health Promotion. "I asked around to other drug experts I know, and none of them knew this was happening. I am a bit shocked but shouldn't be. Corporations increasingly have access to a litany of data and know more about us than anyone else."

"Census data matter more than any other data that are collected by anyone in the U.S. A 2020 Census failure is a failure for the whole country," says Shannon Monnat, Lerner Chair for Public Health Promotion.

COVID-19 mortality risk is not distributed equally across the U.S. Among rural counties, the average daily increase in COVID-19 mortality rates has been significantly higher in counties with the largest percentages of Black and Hispanic residents.

"Disability, obesity, and poor mental health all affect our long-term economic sustainability and social well-being. The underlying causes of many of these issues are deeply connected," says Shannon Monnat, Lerner Chair for Public Health Promotion. "Social scientists are in a prime position to identify underlying social, economic, and policy-related mechanisms, and strategies to mitigate them."

Residents of Ohio's most rural counties are at high risk of hospitalization and death due to COVID-19.

COVID-19 cases in Pennsylvania have been concentrated in eastern urban counties this far. However, the 14-day incident rate has recently begun increasing in several rural counties that have high prevalence of several chronic health conditions that increase risk of severe complications and death from COVID-19.

As New York’s regions move through their various phases of reopening businesses and recreations activities, policymakers and residents should be mindful of the underlying health vulnerabilities and the higher COVID-19 mortality risk in several of NY’s rural counties. Is your county at high risk?

"This is just another example of the negative health impacts of structural racism," says Shannon Monnat, associate professor of sociology and Lerner Chair for Public Health Promotion. "Across all institutions, blacks are disadvantaged."

"Without widespread testing and without knowing the infection rate, we can’t responsibly predict when things could open back up," says Shannon Monnat, associate professor of sociology and Lerner Chair for Public Health Promotion.