NFID Board Members Discuss Solutions to RSV-Related Disparities

William Schaffner, MD, medical director at the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID), and Patsy Stinchfield, RN, MS, CPNP, president-elect of NFID, discuss health care disparities related to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), as well as solutions to close these gaps.

Transcript

Besides overall lack of attention on RSV, what are some other RSV-related disparities?

Stinchfield: I think RSV disparities are similar to our other health care disparities in general and also specific to COVID-19. When we [tell] people, “You've got RSV, you should separate yourself from the other people in your family, go to another part of your house,” or with COVID-19, “You should be in your other room.” Well, a lot of families only have 1 room, so they may not be able to separate themselves as we've asked them to do when they have a viral infection. They may not be able to stay home from work; they may work in a public-facing job; they may need to ride public transportation.

Viral illnesses that are respiratory transmitted like this can impact people differently depending on their socioeconomic status. We have social determinants of health that we're paying attention to in a number of ways and for a number of reasons. I think RSV is going to be the same, that we're really going to need to make sure that people can afford monoclonal antibodies, that it isn't having to have large co-pays, and therefore people who don't have jobs or can't afford co-pays would not be able to access these good preventive therapies or treatments as they come to us in the future. We've got to make sure that the landscape is even and fair and accessible for everybody.

Schaffner: New therapies and new vaccines can help lower the disparity gap, reduce the disparity gap, but they have to be implemented. Just as Patsy says, we have to make sure that they are available in every way—in terms of access, in terms of expense, in terms of education, knowledge, acceptability. All of those issues, which continue to bedevil us in many aspects of medical care, will be in play. But having new therapies and having new vaccines gives us the opportunity to make in-roads into those gaps and to reduce them. The pediatric vaccination program, generally, in this country doesn't get enough credit because, by vaccinating all children, diseases of all kinds have been reduced or eliminated in the entire population. Urban, rural, white, black, tall, short, it doesn't make any difference because we've been able to reach out to the entire population and show what can be done if we are determined to do it.