posted on 2024-09-05, 21:33authored byKeetie Roelen, Caroline Ackley, Paul Boyce, Nicolas Farina, Santiago Ripoll
COVID-19 has caused unprecedented health, economic and societal impacts across the world, including many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The pandemic and its fallout have laid bare deep-seated social and economic inequalities with marginalised groups being at greater risk of infection and being disproportionately affected by containment measures and their socioeconomic consequences. Stigma is a central element to such inequalities but remains largely overlooked in the debate on the response to COVID-19, including in LMICs. Yet we know from experiences with other infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and Ebola that disease-related stigma is detrimental to halting and controlling pandemics and achieving equitable development. Emerging evidence suggests that stigma associated with COVID-19 is already taking hold. This paper assesses potential driving factors of COVID-19-related stigma, and how this intersects with existing stigma fault lines and explores mechanisms through which COVID-19-related stigma may be counteracted, with a focus on LMICs.
Please note: This is an article preprint. Please see external link under 'More details' below for online publisher version.
Funding
This work was supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Global Health Research Unit on NTDs at Brighton and Sussex Medical School using Official Development Assistance (ODA) funding.
History
Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan
Citation
Roelen, K.; Ackley, C.; Boyce, P.; Farina, N. and Ripoll, S. (2020) COVID-19 in LMICs: The Need to Place Stigma Front and Centre to its Response. The European Journal of Development Research [Preprint]. October 6, 2020