The conclusion has surprised researchers at the Hospital del Mar who have studied the impact on the health of the population of confinement and the limitations on mobility established to contain the spread of Covid-19. Contrary to the hypothesis proposed, the pandemic has reduced health inequalities in Spain. Everyone got worse, but the most disadvantaged sectors did not get as bad.
“We thought that the measures against the pandemic had affected people with lower educational levels more and that they would have increased social inequalities, but we have found that what we expected has not happened, but what has increased the most were the problems of health in people with a higher educational level,” explains Montse Ferrer, member of the health services research group at the Hospital del Mar.
According to Ferrer, the results of the work, published in the International Journal for Equity in Health, suggest that the social protection measures applied during the months of most restrictions “helped to prevent problems at the lowest educational levels from increasing as much.”
The work is based on telephone interviews with 2,000 people, segmented according to their educational level, at two times during the pandemic. The first call, in June 2020; the next, nine months later. “Health problems increased in the entire population, but in the period studied they grew more at the high educational level, contrary to what was expected,” says Ferrer.
For example, women with a high educational level reported problems with pain or discomfort and anxiety or depression in 30% in the first evaluation, a percentage that increased to 41% in the second. On the other hand, women with a low educational level started at 50%, which grew to 55% in the second wave. Among men, the reduction in differences is somewhat smaller.
Researchers attribute to teleworking the fact that women with a high level of education have emerged as the most affected group. “It lasted a long time and it was forced teleworking for which we were not prepared, with adequate spaces or optimal computers,” argues Ferrer: “In addition, women had to make teleworking compatible with housework or taking care of the family.”
According to the study, having children or elderly dependents had a greater impact on women than on men. For them, having a partner or older relatives at home had a protective effect.
