A webinar to launch this special issue will be held on February 14, 2023, 13:00-14:30 CET.
Register for the webinar over here.
Covid-19 has revealed the depth and breadth of health inequity both within and across countries. The data collected throughout the outbreak was instructive – not only about the groups that were left behind, but also about how the data itself was integrated and to ensure that attention was paid to key equity dimensions of pandemic preparedness and management, such as population. Disparities in exposure risk, testing and vaccine access.
This special issue on Covid-19 and inequalities, published in the International Journal for Equity in Health, highlights WHO analyses, tools and initiatives focused on key measurable inequities related to Covid-19 and efforts to reduce them. .
The issue includes eight articles covering a range of topics and domains from vaccines to testing, as well as information on software and databases to enhance our analytical capabilities in relation to Covid-19 and its implications. The content will be of interest to researchers, analysts and policymakers interested in monitoring health equity, pandemic response and preparedness to ensure that no one is left behind on the road to the Sustainable Development Goals and WHO’s triple billion targets.
Papers include
- an editorial describing the motivation behind a special issue, all contributions and some insights;
- A paper on WHO’s Covid-19 surveillance database and its potential for distributed analytics;
- A research paper on financial hardship associated with a covid-19 diagnosis that focuses on age-related disparities;
- Software paper describing the features of the WHO Health Equity Assessment Toolkit, open source software for calculating summary measures of equity.
- A research paper on education-related inequalities in 90 countries in the context of Covid-19 prevention and challenge, comparisons by country income groups.
- Health worker coverage compared to the general population Research paper on the global COVID-19 vaccine
- Commentary on the intersection of Covid-19 and disability, disparities in vulnerability to chronic disease, service use experiences and barriers, and a call to action to ensure efforts are inclusive of people with disabilities
- A field contribution note that provides first-hand insights and analysis of social health issues from a WHO special initiative at the height of the epidemic in three regions and six countries and territories.
Webinar agenda
you’re welcome: Stephen McFeely, Director, Data and Analysis Division, WHO
About the special issue: Special Supplement Authors, Lead Editor Ahmed Reza Hosseinpour, Health Inequities Monitoring, Data and Analysis Unit, WHO
Open the session for questions Directed by Devaki Nambiar, Health Inequalities Monitoring, Data and Analysis Unit, WHO