The Social Epidemiology of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened health disparities worldwide. Across all nations, the burden of COVID-19 has fallen most heavily on the socially disadvantaged. In the United States, the COVID-19 mortality rate for Black Americans is over twice that of their White American counterparts, and people in prisons have more than double the COVID-19 mortality rate of the general U.S. population. Other social dimensions such as income, gender, sexuality, and immigration status have also played a significant role in COVID-19 infection, hospitalization, and mortality.

The Social Epidemiology of the COVID-19 Pandemic provides an interdisciplinary analysis of the pandemic's effect across populations and its disproportionate impact on vulnerable groups in society, including racial/ethnic minority, immigrant, and incarcerated populations. Written by leading international scholars, this essential volume describes how the COVID-19 pandemic intersects with nearly every social determinant of health, from race and ethnicity to income inequality, and how such interactions compound existing structural disadvantages. Using examples from upper-middle and high-income countries such as the United States, contributing experts delve into the differential impacts of COVID-19 by major social determinants of health and reveal the resultant effect of pandemic-related policy on health outcomes. Together, these authors underline the urgent need for further integration of social epidemiology into public health decision-making to ensure that every population receives the care it requires.

Drawing from research across epidemiology, sociology, psychology, and public policy, The Social Epidemiology of the COVID-19 Pandemic illuminates the stark disparities exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the valuable insights from social epidemiology that can inform a more equitable pandemic response.

The COVID-19 pandemic showed, yet again, that the consequences of pandemics emerge from far more than the pathogen itself. They emerge from the social conditions that set the stage for who becomes sick, who lives, and who dies. This book offers a comprehensive account of the social forces that created the COVID-19 pandemic and points to lessons we would be wise to learn if we are to mitigate the next pandemic.

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