Women's health inequities during covid-19: a rapid scoping review

Objectives

The unprecedented circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic have impacted women disproportionately in all biopsychosocial domains. We undertook a rapid scoping review to determine the extent of impacts to women's health during the pandemic.

Methods

Electronic bibliographic databases (EMBASE, CINAHL, Epistemonikos), pre-prints servers (MedRxiv, BioRxiv, and PsyArXiv), and the grey literature (websites for WHO, UN, CDC, NICE, SIGN, SOGC, ACOG, RCOG, RANZCOG) were searched for articles reporting COVID-19’s impact on women's health. Findings were organized thematically with narrative synthesis.

Results

Of 1,490 abstracts identified using electronic databases, 87 studies were included, along with 88 from grey literature search for final analysis. Most studies were based on a single country (n=82), while others were international from Asia, Europe, North America, and South America (n=5). The majority were original studies in scientific journals (n=83), and others were policy papers (n=4). Six major themes were identified to include the reported health impacts on women: [1] increased proportion of COVID-19 infections, frequency of symptoms, and hospitalization duration (n=8); [2] worsening mental health and substance misuse (n=37); [3] restricted women's health services (family planning, breast/gynecologic cancer, sexual health, and transgender health) (n=7); [4] increased healthcare worker harassment, stigmatization, and burnout among women (n=21); [5] pregnancy specific vulnerabilities (n=10); and [6] increased gender-based violence (n=2).

Conclusions

Our review provides a global overview of COVID-19′s impact on women's physical and mental health, and access issues to health services. Our results will inform future quantitative and qualitative research, as well as health system policies and decision-making for women's health during the pandemic.