COINCIDING with World Health Day on April 7, 2023, the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT) Library presented Guyanese-born professor and former Pro-Chancellor of the University of Guyana, Prem Misir’s book (COVID-19 and Health System Segregation in the US) as the E-Book of the week.

The book identifies and offers solutions to the racial and ethnic health inequities that Americans of colour experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the book, disparities in racial and ethnic health are not caused by racial characteristics but rather by social factors that are firmly rooted in systematic racism and are mediated by the white racial frame. It also stated that any analysis of health equity and disparity must take race and ethnicity into account; therefore, the health system and medical care cannot realistically reduce racial health disparities.

The theory of structuration, which looks at the tension between agency and structure, is examined in the book as a potentially effective method for eradicating systematic racism, the White racial frame, and racialised social structures.

Misir specifically looks at COVID-19 with a focus on the segregated US healthcare system. The separate but equal philosophy that governs the US healthcare system means that while members of the majority group have access to high-quality care, individuals of colour have either no access or very limited access to it.

He also shows that racial and ethnic health disparities are worse than COVID-19. According to him, the gap will endure if the US legislative and economic engines do nothing but say that the pandemic will eventually fade like other infections.

Some of the topics covered within the chapters are Epidemiology of COVID-19; Introduction: Segregation of Health Care; Systemic Racism and the White Racial Frame; and Dismantling Systemic Racism and Structuration Theory.

The book is also used as a theory-informing inductive data analysis study design to explore COVID-19 deaths in 760 counties in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, among Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics.

Professor Misir is the holder of the following degrees: PhD (University of Hull, England); MPH (University of Manchester, England); M.Phil. (University of Surrey, England); B.S.Sc. (Honours) (Queen’s University of Belfast, United Kingdom); Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health (FRSPH, England); and Certificate, Harvard University—Improving Global Health: Focusing on Quality and Safety.

He is also the former vice chancellor of the University of Fiji; pro vice chancellor of the Solomon Islands Campus; and professor and head of the School of Public Health at the University of the South Pacific (immediate past).

In addition to journal articles, he is the author of 11 books, the most recent being HIV/AIDS and Adolescents: South Pacific and Caribbean, Singapore, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019; The Subaltern Indian Woman: Domination and Social Degradation, Singapore, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; and HIV/AIDS: Knowledge and Stigma in Guyana, University of the West Indies Press, 2013.

The UK-based MFT Library is a multidisciplinary resource accessible to all trust-based clinical and non-clinical staff, students, researchers, educators and learners. It also plays a critical role in facilitating research proceedings in the trust, enabling staff and students to meet their ongoing professional development needs. The library upholds MFT’s clinical governance and patient care commitments, hence impacting the improvement of health and quality of life of the diverse population through which the trust operates.