Elsevier

Public Health

Volume 198, September 2021, Pages 171-173
Public Health

Short Communication
Contextualising gender intersectionality with the COVID-19 pandemic

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2021.07.033Get rights and content

Abstract

Objectives

To explore the association of gender inequality index (GII) with healthcare access and quality index (HAQI) for the male to female ratio of confirmed COVID-19 cases.

Study design

Secondary analysis of COVID-19 cases with GII and HAQI datasets.

Methods

Data for sex-disaggregated COVID-19 cases were collected from Global Health 50/50, for GII from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and for HAQI from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). We used Spearman's correlation in SPSS version 23 to evaluate the association between the variables.

Results

Cambodia had the highest male to female ratio (M:F) of 4.08:1, followed by Pakistan (M:F = 2.85:1) and Nepal (M:F = 2.69:1). We observed a positive correlation between GII and M:F ratio (Spearman's rho = 0.681, P-value <0.001) and a negative correlation between HAQI and M:F ratio (Spearman's rho = −0.676, P-value <0.001).

Conclusions

Countries with institutionalised gender disparities and poor healthcare access and quality tend to have higher M:F ratios of confirmed COVID-19 cases; thus, highlighting underutilisation of testing services, influenced by multiple individuals, social and policy factors. Robust gender-based data are required to understand disparities throughout the continuum of care and to devise gender-responsive pandemic strategies.

Keywords

COVID19
Gender inequality
Healthcare access
Surveillance

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