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Racism and capitalism mutually construct harmful social conditions that fundamentally shape COVID-19 disease inequities because they (a) shape multiple diseases that interact with COVID-19 to influence poor health outcomes; (b) affect disease outcomes through increasing multiple risk factors for poor, people of color, including racial residential segregation, homelessness, and medical bias; (c) shape access to flexible resources, such as medical knowledge and freedom, which can be used to minimize both risks and the consequences of disease; and (d) replicate historical patterns of inequities within pandemics, despite newer intervening mechanisms thought to ameliorate health consequences. Interventions should address social inequality to achieve health equity across pandemics.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/1090198120922942","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,4,26]],"date-time":"2020-04-26T05:25:27Z","timestamp":1587878727000},"page":"504-508","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":471,"title":["Racial Capitalism: A Fundamental Cause of Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic Inequities in the United States"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"47","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5357-8629","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Whitney N.","family":"Laster Pirtle","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"University of California Merced, Merced, CA, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,4,26]]},"reference":[{"key":"bibr1-1090198120922942","volume-title":"The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness","author":"Alexander M.","year":"2020","edition":"10"},{"key":"bibr2-1090198120922942","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ansell D. 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