Socioeconomic inequities in specialized health services use following COVID-19 in individuals from Southern Brazil.

BACKGROUND: Evidence on inequalities in the health services use is important for public policy formulation, even more so in a pandemic context. The aim of this study was to evaluate socioeconomic inequities in the specialized health use services according to health insurance and income, following COVID-19 in individuals residing in Southern Brazil. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional telephone survey with individuals aged 18 years or older diagnosed with symptomatic COVID-19 using the RT-PCR test between December 2020 and March 2021. Questions were asked about attendance at a health care facility following COVID-19, the facilities used, health insurance and income. Inequalities were assessed by the following measures: Slope Index of Inequality (SII) and Concentration Index (CIX). Adjusted analyses were performed using Poisson regression with robust variance adjustment using the Stata 16.1 statistical package. RESULTS: 2,919 people (76.4% of those eligible) were interviewed. Of these, 24.7% (95%CI 23.2; 36.3) used at least one specialized health service and 20.3% (95%CI 18.9; 21.8) had at least one consultation with specialist doctors after diagnosis of COVID-19. Individuals with health insurance were more likely to use specialized services. The probability of using specialized services was up to three times higher among the richest compared to the poorest. CONCLUSIONS: There are socioeconomic inequalities in the specialized services use by individuals following COVID-19 in the far south of Brazil. It is necessary to reduce the difficulty in accessing and using specialized services and to extrapolate the logic that purchasing power transposes health needs. The strengthening of the public health system is essential to guarantee the population's right to health.

Mating in Captivity: The Influence of Social Location on Sexual Satisfaction through Phases of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The recent global pandemic provides a natural experiment "intervention" to examine how differing baseline social dynamics such as gender, education, and politics shaped diverging patterns of well-being during rapidly shifting societal conditions. Using married adults from a nationally representative panel study in the United States from August 2019 to August 2021, discontinuous growth curves reveal a large drop in average married sexual satisfaction in both quality and frequency directly following the pandemic onset. Moreover, sexual satisfaction remained largely suppressed for the subsequent 18 months, apart from a brief "optimism blip" in the fall of 2020. Race, age, income, employment, parenthood, education, and political affiliation all appear as meaningful predictors, but these differ across various phases of the pandemic and by gender. These results reveal evidence of lingering changes in subjective sexual well-being as well as patterns of catastrophe risk and resilience moderated by social location factors.

The Emerging Challenges and Strengths of the National Health Services: A Physician Perspective.

The National Health Services (NHS) is a British national treasure and has been highly valued by the British public since its establishment in 1948. Like other healthcare organizations worldwide, the NHS has faced challenges over the last few decades and has survived most of these challenges. The main challenges faced by NHS historically have been staffing retention, bureaucracy, lack of digital technology, and obstacles to sharing data for patient healthcare. These have changed significantly as the major challenges faced by NHS currently are the aging population, the need for digitalization of services, lack of resources or funding, increasing number of patients with complicated health needs, staff retention, and primary healthcare issues, issues with staff morale, communication break down, backlog in-clinic appointments and procedures worsened by COVID 19 pandemic. A key concept of NHS is equal and free healthcare at the point of need to everyone and anyone who needs it during an emergency. The NHS has looked after its patients with long-term illnesses better than most other healthcare organizations worldwide and has a very diversified workforce. COVID-19 also allowed NHS to adopt newer technology, resulting in adapting telecommunication and remote clinic. On the other hand, COVID-19 has pushed the NHS into a serious staffing crisis, backlog, and delay in patient care. This has been made worse by serious underfunding the coronavirus disease-19coronavirus disease-19 over the past decade or more. This is made worse by the current inflation and stagnation of salaries resulting in the migration of a lot of junior and senior staff overseas, and all this has badly hammered staff morale. The NHS has survived various challenges in the past; however, it remains to be seen if it can overcome the current challenges.

What's Your Pension Story? Women's Perspectives during the COVID-19 Pandemic on Their Old-Age Pension Status, Past and Present.

This study examines the present and retrospective views of mothers who are nearing or are at retirement age regarding their economic status, pension planning, and perceptions of state pension policy. The paper addresses gaps in the literature on the cross-intersections of employment history, vulnerable economic retirement status, and marital and parental status, thereby adopting a life course perspective. Based on in-depth interviews of thirty-one mothers (ages 59-72) during the COVID-19 pandemic, the findings revealed five themes-economic abuse: an unequal distribution of pension funds following divorce; regrets over past choices; COVID-19 and pensions; the state's responsibility for old-age economic security; and knowledge is important, and I can help others. The study concludes that the majority of women at these ages perceive their current economic situation as a product of insufficient familiarity with pension plans, while voicing opinions about the state's irresponsibility regarding people of retirement age.

Assessing inequality in the school closure response to COVID-19.

The spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused school closures in most countries, affecting over 90% of the world's student population. School closures can widen learning inequalities and disproportionately hurt vulnerable students. We collected data on the exam scores of university applicants in China before and after a two-month period of school closure. We observe that students from rural, lower-income households are more negatively affected by school closures compared to their urban, higher-income counterparts. The inequality effect remains sizable in the admission exam three months after schools reopen. To strengthen the causal interpretation of the results, we investigate the scores in the previous graduating cohorts who did not experience school closure, and find no evidence of the change in scores over the same calendar period. Our study points to the urgent need to address the educational inequality caused by school closures.

Locked down by inequality: Older people and the COVID-19 pandemic.

This paper develops the argument that post-COVID-19 recovery strategies need to focus on building back fairer cities and communities, and that this requires a strong embedding of 'age-friendly' principles to support marginalised groups of older people, especially those living in deprived urban neighbourhoods, trapped in poor quality housing. It shows that older people living in such areas are likely to experience a 'double lockdown' as a result of restrictions imposed by social distancing combined with the intensification of social and spatial inequalities. This argument is presented as follows: first, the paper examines the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on older people, highlighting how the pandemic is both creating new and reinforcing existing inequalities in ageing along the lines of gender, class, ethnicity, race, ability and sexuality. Second, the paper explores the role of spatial inequalities in the context of COVID-19, highlighting how the pandemic is having a disproportionate impact on deprived urban areas already affected by cuts to public services, the loss of social infrastructure and pressures on the voluntary sector. Finally, the paper examines how interrelated social inequalities at both the individual and spatial level are affecting the lives of older people living in deprived urban neighbourhoods during the pandemic. The paper concludes by developing six principles for 'age-friendly' community recovery planning aimed at maintaining and improving the quality of life and wellbeing of older residents in the post-pandemic city.

social welfare advice and health among young people: a scoping review

Social determinants of mental and physical health that influence young peoples' trajectories into adulthood are often remediable through law. To address inequalities, including those exacerbated since the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a need to better understand young people's need for and uptake of advice for social welfare legal problems. This scoping review aimed to review available evidence and identify gaps to inform further research. To identify studies relevant to social welfare legal advice among young adults we conducted searches of eight bibliographic databases (compiled between January 1998 and June 2020), hand searches of included article reference lists and targeted grey literature searches. 35 peer reviewed and grey literature studies were selected based on inclusion and exclusion criteria including evaluations of interventions to promote access to advice, general population surveys, observational studies, and audits of charity data or targeted surveys. Evidence suggests considerable and inequitable need for social welfare legal advice among young adults with adverse consequences for health and wellbeing. Needs among higher risk groups are likely underestimated. Evidence for interventions to enhance access/uptake of advice is limited and methodologically weak. We identify several gaps in the literature to inform research and to enable systematic reviews around more specific questions to inform practice.

Economic Justice in Post-COVID India: A Macroeconomic Perspective

The COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown wreaked havoc on substantial segments of the Indian population through unemployment and income loss, only highlighting the lack of institutional structures and policies to protect vulnerable sections of society from aggregate as well as idiosyncratic shocks. This chapter argues that the variations in the capacity to better one's life are conditional on socio-economic divisions a person belongs to and this makes such divisions fault lines. They constitute structural weaknesses in the economy leaving out millions of people without the capability to participate in the economy meaningfully and remuneratively. The author provides evidence of disproportionate impact of the pandemic along these fault lines and provides a policy framework for economic justice and prosperity to all in the post-COVID economy. He also highlights the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to policy-making given the complex nature of the problem. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023.

Connecting and relating in Brazil: Implications of remote work

COVID-19 triggered a monumental shift to remote work. The challenge of connecting and relating among knowledge employees emerged globally, and research about remote work in this unique circumstance surged. However, we know more about the impact of remote work on knowledge employees in low-context cultures than in high-context. Given that Brazil is high context, we explored how remote work impacted relating and connecting among knowledge employees in Brazil. First, employees lost the informality of work-life;instead of informal, fluid communication and collaboration, participants had to book appointments and schedule time to discuss simple issues. Second, good-humoured behaviours diminished, implicating connectedness. Third, non-verbal communication ceased, and employees lost facial expressions, eye contact, and other prevalent signs necessary for context. Fourth, the loss of unstructured exchange of experiences and ideas lessened tacit knowledge sharing. Fifth, workspace inequalities emerged as the employees' homes were unequipped for remote work. Lastly, the most significant win was work-life balance. Therefore, remote work in high-context cultures is not without peril;culture and socioeconomics underline remote work's self-generating, self-organizing mechanisms. Thus, corporate leaders and human resource professionals should address remote work as a layered phenomenon and, carefully, with employees, co-construct the notion of connecting and relating. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Localizing Responses to Gender-Based Violence: The Case of Women-Led Community-Based Organizations in Jordan

While the rationale for localizing humanitarian health response is well established at the level of policy rhetoric, the operationalization of the concept and its mainstreaming into concrete practice still require clearer intentionality. With COVID-19 pushing more people further into vulnerability, placing local communities at the heart of humanitarian and development health efforts has never been more urgent. Focusing on Jordan, this essay brings attention to the significant toll of violence against women and girls in conflict-affected communities and the importance of empowering local actors with community knowledge and resources to prevent and respond to gender-based violence. The essay follows on from the research conducted for CARE Jordan's She Is a Humanitarian report (2022) and draws on interviews I conducted with the heads of women's organizations in the summer of 2022. The essay explores the role of local women humanitarian actors as frontline responders, the challenges that hinder their role, and the advantages such actors enjoy, which, if harnessed, can achieve gains in accountability, health service quality, and gender equality.

Social Inequality and Mobilization in Changing Thailand

Inequality has long persisted in Thailand and its level reached a peak in 2018. Around the end of 2019, the Covid-19 pandemic began to spread around the world and reached Thailand in January 2020, intensifying inequality with critical socio-economic disruptions. Subsequently, over 2,000 protests took place from 2020 to 2022. The combination of challenges caused rapid changes in Thailand. This article offers explanations of ‘who' was doing ‘what' and ‘how' in response to inequality. The article discusses situations of social inequality and people's reactions during the period 2019-2022, by using Bourdieu's concept of capital to tackle inequality and the demands of the various groups. The article utilized a quantitative method based on measures of frequency and regression techniques. The results demonstrate that the middle classes want democracy, and the working classes want more equality and participation. Key responses to social inequality and the government administration included both online and onsite mobilizations. Findings show that age, residency, and capital have impacts on mobilizations in which young people constitute the largest group to join both physical and virtual spaces. © The Authors.

#I Stay Home (If I Can): COVID-19 and Social Inequality in Peru: A View from Auto-Ethnography

The chapter aims to analyze the COVID-19 pandemic from an autoethnography carried out in Cusco (Peru). This highlights the social differences and socioeconomic conditions that influence theway of living the pandemic and suffering its effects, which, in the Peruvian case, has more critically affected the most vulnerable populations. Thus, the privileged people can stay at home while the rest must go out to live/survive. The chapter invites us to think about a new social pact, more equitable and fairer, that divorces the pandemic-social inequality marriage, observed in different parts of the planet, particularly in the Americas. This is necessary to avoid future problems of equal or greater magnitude that tend to take their toll on vulnerable populations that often do not have the means to pay, or pay at the risk of their lives. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022, corrected publication 2022.

Lessons for the Age of Consequences: COVID-19 and the Macroeconomy

Comparative empirical evidence for 22 OECD countries shows that country differences in cumulative mortality impacts of SARS-CoV-2 are caused by weaknesses in public health competences, pre-existing variances in structural socio-economic and public health vulnerabilities, and the presence of fiscal constraints. Remarkably, the (fiscally non-constrained) U.S. and the U.K. stand out, as they experience mortality outcomes similar to those of fiscally-constrained countries. High COVID19 mortality in the U.S. and the U.K. is due to pre-existing socio-economic and public health vulnerabilities, created by the following macroeconomic policy errors: (a) a deadly emphasis on fiscal austerity (which diminished public health capacities, damaged public health and deepened inequalities);(b) an obsessive belief in a trade-off between ‘efficiency' and ‘equity', which is mostly used to justify extreme inequality;(c) a complicit endorsement by mainstream macro of the unchecked power over monetary and fiscal policy-making of global finance and the rentier class;and (d) an unhealthy aversion to raising taxes, which deceives the public about the necessity to raise taxes to counter the excessive liquidity preference of the rentiers and to realign the interests of finance and of the real economy. The paper concludes by outlining a few lessons for a saner macroeconomics.

Breastfeeding in emergencies with assessment of recent humanitarian crises and the Covid-19 pandemic.

The world is becoming a place where the number of emergencies and humanitarian crises is increasing rapidly due to economic inequality and the gap between developed and underdeveloped countries, as well as climate changes leading to disruption of the natural balance and development of natural disasters. The most vulnerable groups of the population including women and children always are affected by disasters. The younger the child, the more vulnerable he/she is, especially if not naturally fed or having a mother or parents. Various humanitarian organizations have been involved in a number of crises, with the World Health Organization and UNICEF and other United Nations-related organizations leading the way. In the care of mothers, infants and young children, most important is to ensure appropriate nutrition because otherwise it can result in life-threatening health conditions. The lack of protection, support and promotion of natural nutrition (breastfeeding) and its disruption and undermining by uncritical and uncontrolled donations and distribution of infant formula are the biggest challenge due to the lack of information of mothers, those who provide support in emergencies from both governmental and non-governmental sector, without cross-sectoral cooperation, thus causing uncoordinated and sometimes harmful interventions. Therefore, it is recommended that governments issue guidelines on infant and young child nutrition prior to the occurrence of an emergency, and crisis management regulations in which the issue of infant and young child nutrition will be given due consideration.Copyright © 2020 Croatian Paediatric Society. All rights reserved.

Economic Inequality during Covid-19 as a Pathway to Food Insecurity for People who are Disabled and Racialized as Non-White

Covid-19 heightened economic inequality across the U.S., especially for people who are disabled and non-white. These intersecting economic vulnerabilities open pathways to hunger. Using a survey from July 2020 (n = 2,043) in the Intermountain West, we find that economic inequality explained a substantial portion of food insecurity for people with disabilities. Racially stratified models show that people who were also non-white were more likely to be food insecure and receive differential protection from economic resources. Stronger social support will help mitigate food insecurity, yet such programs must grapple with the ways that ableism and racism intersect, especially during economic shock.Copyright © 2022 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

The many shades of violence against women: a call to action

Confronting gender-based violence is a key area of concern and one that calls for urgent action. These debates have become particularly relevant in light of the Covid-19 pandemic and the unveiling of underlying inequalities. Amongst the many unintended consequences of the pandemic lies the increased risk of domestic violence for vulnerable women who have been required to self-isolate. There is increasing evidence that we are facing more than one pandemic with quite worrying and widespread problems in global systems, whether they relate to public health or to human rights. As academics, we can contribute by theorizing with intersectionalities, translating research into practice, engaging with our local communities and creating non-stigmatized environment. But most of all, we can advocate for victims.

Leaving: Residential mobility and housing conditions in France during the Covid-19 epidemic

In the spring of 2020, a national lockdown was declared in France to control the Covid-19 epidemic - the longest and strictest to date. This led to spontaneous population movements, widely publicised in the media as the urban exodus of Parisians. But were departures from large cities to low-density areas the only types of mobility during this period? And what can we learn from housing changes during lockdown about the ordinary residential practices and dwelling conditions of households, as well as about the resources mobilised to cope with these exceptional situations? Based on the EpiCOV survey (Inserm-Drees), conducted in France among a sample of 135,000 people aged 15 and over at the end of the first lockdown, this article examines the different types of residential mobility that took place in the spring of 2020 on French territory. While this study does not predict whether or not these movements are to become permanent, or whether they would be repeated during further phases of lockdown, it highlights the heterogeneity of mobility practices, captured here in terms of distance travelled, changes within the urban gradient, types and conditions of housing, as well as the variety of resources mobilised according to sex, age and social position of individuals. While long-distance mobility more often concerns wealthy populations, local movements are almost as frequent and concern more heterogeneous fractions of the population. © 2023 Geographie-Cites. All rights reserved.

Converging Crises and the Cost of Exclusion: Unveiling the Invisible Women of Sri Lanka's Economy

In Sri Lanka, womens labor force participation has never exceeded 35% in over three decades. As of 2022, the country was ranked 110 out of 146 countries in the World Economic Forums Gender Gap Index. The gaps in womens participation in the formal economy alongside womens limited political empowerment are two leading causes for the country to be lagging in such global gender equality indicators. At a large cost to the economy, the existence of archaic gender norms that promulgate womens unpaid care work often exclude women from the formal labor force. This paper dissects the socio-economic and socio-political factors that lead to the invisibility of women in Sri Lankas economy, while seeking to understand how such underlying causes have been aggravated within the precarity of the post-pandemic context. It is important, now more than ever, to recognize the invisibility of women in Sri Lankas formal economy, while bringing about a transformative vision with a multi-pronged approach to address existing gaps and challenges. With reference to key principles of feminist economics, including the theoretical foundations of Claudia Goldin, Nancy Folbre, and Diane Elson, among others, the paper will make a case for inclusivity and intersectionality in policy recommendations aimed at encouraging womens entry, active engagement, contribution, and retention in Sri Lankas economy. The paper reaches a conclusion that when women lead, participate, and benefit equally in all aspects of life, societies and economies will thrive, thereby contributing to sustainable development and inclusive economic growth.

The impact of COVID-19 on women and children in the UK who were victims of domestic abuse: a practitioner perspective

PurposeThis study aims to explore the impact of COVID-19 on women and children in the UK who were victims of domestic abuse.Design/methodology/approachThe authors draw from their experiences of working in the domestic abuse sector to reflect on the impact of lockdown restrictions on women and children, focussing on the impact of government restrictions that created an environment in which abusers could control the movement of victims.FindingsThe impact of the pandemic was significant as victims were locked into the abuse, unable to escape for fear of breaching lockdown rules. The lockdown affected victims of different forms of violence against women and girls in the UK including forced marriage and female genital mutilation, which highlighted the ramifications of intersectional inequalities for abuse victims.Originality/valueThis paper articulates the devastating impact of the pandemic on vulnerable women, and their fair and just access to the family courts. This paper concludes that women were failed by the government and that there was not nearly enough support from support agencies, which has left many at risk and suffering significant harm.

Desdobramentos das desigualdades raciais na pandemia da Covid-19

O presente estudo tematiza o racismo na sociedade de classes e tem como objetivo analisar os desdobramentos das desigualdades raciais na pandemia da Covid-19. Logo, utilizou-se o método materialismo histórico-dialético e uma abordagem qualitativa. Dessa forma, foi realizada uma pesquisa bibliográfica e documental, além de um trabalho de mapeamento a partir dos dados secundários do Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE) de 2019;Atlas da violência de 2020, elaborado pelo Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada (IPEA);e o Boletim especial 20 de novembro de 2021, do Departamento Intersindical de Estatística e Estudos Socioeconômicos (DIEESE), para dialogar com a realidade dos afro-brasileiros em cenário pandêmico. Dos resultados do estudo, destacamos: que o racismo tem sido um eixo estruturante da sociedade brasileira mesmo numa fase pós-abolicionista;e que a questão racial tem sido uma das expressões da questão social na sociedade do capital, de tal modo que as desigualdades são conexas na contemporaneidade;e ainda, que a pandemia acentuou as desigualdades raciais no Brasil.Alternate :The present study thematizes racism in class society and aims to analyze the consequences of racial inequalities in the covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, the Historical-Dialectical Materialism method and a qualitative approach were used. In this way, a bibliographic and documentary research was carried out, in addition to a mapping work based on secondary data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) of 2019, Atlas of Violence of 2020 made by the Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA) and the Special Bulletin 20 November 2021 of the Inter-union Department of Statistics and Socioeconomic Studies (DIEESE) to dialogue with the reality of Afro-Brazilians in a pandemic scenario. From the results of the study, we highlight that racism has been a structuring axis of Brazilian society even in a post-abolitionist phase;that the Racial Question has been one of the expressions of the Social Question in the society of Capital, in such a way that inequalities are connected in contemporaneity;and, that the pandemic accentuated racial inequalities in Brazil.