Features

Daliah Heller, Director of Drug Use Initiatives at Vital Strategies discusses how COVID-19 has impacted people who use drugs and how states can encourage harm reduction during the pandemic.

The strength of our world’s public health systems can be best measured by the well-being of those who are the least protected—whether because of systematic drivers of inequity like poverty or racism, or structural issues that drive lack of access to care, or some combination. COVID-19 has centered these inequities as never before, increasing ill health beyond infectious disease and driving death and disease in other areas. Vital Strategies works in cities and countries where the need is highest and where we can make the greatest impact—and we do not turn away from multilayered challenges. We specialize in creating solutions to problems at a national and global scale.

A new partnership between the Philadelphia Department of Public Health and Mural Arts Philadelphia—with support from the Partnership for Healthy Cities—successfully launched an eye-catching platform for a public art campaign that promotes safe physical distancing and COVID-19 prevention.