ABSTRACT
African Americans have suffered disproportionately from COVID-19. Underlying health conditions account for part of the disproportion. Exposure to the disease due to being essential workers is another part. Emotional pain resulting from infections, deaths, and other occurrences add to preexisting allostatic loads, resulting in profound amounts of stress. For many African Americans, especially those residing in congested urban or poor rural areas, such stress increases the daily concerns of communities saturated with poverty and violence. Palliative care is a healthcare paradigm designed to address physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual needs of patients and derivative effects on family members. While the original focus of such case was on patients suffering from terminal conditions, the focus has shifted to include patients suffering from chronic conditions. Throughout that time span, spirituality has been one of the most underdeveloped aspects of the palliative care framework. That fact has been especially troubling for people of African descent, who during some of the most crucial moments in their history have relied on spirituality to overcome life's challenges associated with systemic oppression. This essay contends it is important for health delivery systems to recognize gaps in racial/ethnic justice and for faith institutions to be positioned well to bridge the gaps.
