Hosted by the GPH Center for Anti-Racism, Social Justice and Public Health
The Puerto Rico healthcare system has been challenged in recent years by an increasing frequency and intensity of disasters (e.g., hurricanes, earthquakes, power outages, droughts, infectious disease outbreaks). While these events have affected island-wide population health, they have further exposed frailties of the island’s healthcare infrastructure, including poor system preparedness, recovery, and resilience, an exodus of health providers to the US mainland, and issues with health insurance coverage and reimbursements.
Join Dr. Alexandra Rivera-González for a discussion about how these emergencies have revealed an underlying systemic disaster: the U.S.’s extended neglect of Puerto Rico. As a U.S. territory, Puerto Rico has minimal autonomy over local affairs – all else falls under federal jurisdiction, including disaster response and recovery and funding for Medicaid and Medicare. This presentation will describe current health policy dilemmas in Puerto Rico and will characterize inequities across the following domains: (1) coverage and reimbursement, (2) providers, (3) facilities, and (4) individual factors. Ongoing public health research in Puerto Rico and current challenges will also be discussed.