COVID-19 and Adverse Social Determinants of Health

Date of this Version

3-23-2022

Document Type

Article

Rights

default

Abstract

This introduction to the Special Issue (SI) on COVID-19 and adverse social determinants of health (SDoH) provides theoretical and empirical context for featured articles. Existing disparities and inequities are highlighted and emerging research on disparities resulting from these and the COVID-19 pandemic are briefly reviewed. General disparities and inequities resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic are briefly conceptualized through the SDoH. Critical factors outlined by the SDoH framework parallel those discussed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as those in a conceptual framework article also feature in this SI. Some of these consist of racism, exclusion, blocked opportunity, and socioeconomic status (SES), among others. Furthermore, we discuss broader social inequities, namely growing income and wealth inequality that undermine the health and wellbeing of the general population and ethnic minority groups in particular. Big Event theory is offered as an additional conceptual framework that can illuminate potential downstream negative impacts of the pandemic. Having provided summaries of featured articles in this SI, we make a call for researchers to engage in further theoretical and empirical work to identify the most critical SDOH to further the field of public health as well as related fields and inform policy.

Share

COinS
 

Rights Statement

Rights Statement

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).