Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health· 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic and health inequalities
- 2,041citations
- 2020year
Short summary
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing health inequalities, creating a 'syndemic' where the virus interacts with pre-existing chronic diseases and social determinants of health.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- COVID-19 infection and mortality rates show significant socio-economic, ethnic, and geographical inequalities.
- These pandemic-related inequalities are amplified by pre-existing disparities in chronic diseases and social determinants of health.
- Lockdown measures and the resulting economic crisis are expected to disproportionately affect vulnerable populations, widening health gaps.
- The paper advocates for long-term public health policies to mitigate the pandemic's impact on future health inequalities.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
This essay examines the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for health inequalities. It outlines historical and contemporary evidence of inequalities in pandemics—drawing on international research into the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918, the H1N1 outbreak of 2009 and the emerging international estimates of socio-economic, ethnic and geographical inequalities in COVID-19 infection and mortality rates. It then examines how these inequalities in COVID-19 are related to existing inequalities in chronic diseases and the social determinants of health, arguing that we are experiencing a syndemic pandemic . It then explores the potential consequences for health inequalities of the lockdown measures implemented internationally as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on the likely unequal impacts of the economic crisis. The essay concludes by reflecting on the longer-term public health policy responses needed to ensure that the COVID-19 pandemic does not increase health inequalities for future generations.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 2020 · DOI ↗
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Field: Health
HealthSocial Sciences