America’s Business Community Leads Pandemic Response and Preparedness: COVID-19 recovery, resilience to economic fall-out and support for Community Collaborative model to prevent the next public health crisis

Bill Oldham & Shawn Murphy

Abstract

Despite its devastating impact on populations and businesses worldwide, COVID-19 is providing an opportunity to reassess, discover and strengthen the fabric of communities and states across the country in order to mitigate the brunt of future health crises. While we are “all in this together,” there is a need to take action and set the agenda for addressing the factors that affect the strength and resilience of individuals, businesses, policy makers and communities. Now is the time to galvanize business and healthcare leaders nationwide to not only react to the current and ongoing coronavirus challenge, but to also prepare for future health crises that have the power to cripple our economic climate, further impact racial disparities and access to care, and impose restrictions on our entire healthcare system. By working together through community collaboratives and taking action now, this tragic pandemic serves as a learning experience to move forward toward repair and effect positive change.