Malliarou Maria, Gagamanou Athanasia, Bouletis Axilleas, Tzenetidis Vasileios, Papathanasiou Iokasti, Theodoropoulou Maria, Apostolidi Theodora-Paisia, Grammatis Vaios, Patsopoulou Anna, Sarafis Pavlos
Laboratory of Education and Research of Trauma Care and patient safety, Nursing Department, University of Thessaly, Larissa, Greece.
Hellenic Open University, Patras, Greece.
Adv Exp Med Biol. 2023;1425:393-399. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-31986-0_38.
The pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing health and socioeconomic inequalities around the globe. In order to mitigate the effects of extreme isolation and containment measures, governments have taken steps to protect the health, the economy, employment, and socially vulnerable groups. The health crisis should be treated as a pretext in order to ensure universal access to health and socioeconomics.The aim of this review was the presentation of the way the pandemic contributed to the worldwide deterioration of health inequities affecting in parallel the social protection in the health, economic and educational sector along with other factors, the effects and the measures taken, in order to face the consequences of a pandemic on the social protection in Greece in comparison with other countries of Europe.
A cross-sectional bibliographic study was undertaken using keywords and phrases such as "COVID-19," "Health inequities," "Social protection," and "Social identifiers." The search was done through the search engines google scholar, PubMed, Health link, and Elsevier using either the Greek or English language. The total number of evaluated read-used articles was 30. Inclusion criteria were free full-text meta-analyses, reviews, and systematic reviews.
The socially disadvantaged groups in the United States were found to have a lower life expectancy and higher morbidity rates than privileged social groups, as economic, health, and sociocultural precariousness are major causes of death. Patients with underlying diseases are vulnerable groups and increase the risk of coronavirus infection and quite often lead to loss of life due to complications of the disease. Greece is ranked in the 4th worst position with 61.10% in employment in all European Union (EU) countries. There is a significant increase in deaths with a percentage change from 2018 to date of 17.50%. It also holds the 3rd worst position among EU countries in the field of unemployment, while women hold the 2nd worst with a rate of 13.50%. Overworked and overindebted households due to extreme measures due to the pandemic (reduction of working time, quarantine) led to unemployment, loss of income, poverty, widening social inequalities, and deteriorating care for people with disabilities. Children due to the closure of schools and the loss of school meals are led to food insecurity. The pandemic also left many children orphaned after the death of their parents by COVID-19, with psychosocial problems exacerbated by school closures.
The pandemic has exacerbated long-standing health and socioeconomic inequalities, stressing to governments the need to adopt political strategies that will help address them. Measures have been taken in Greece for labor protection, and unemployment benefits, such as the two-month extension of the subsidy period for the unemployed and the long-term unemployed. Minimum insurance days have also been reduced so that citizens employed in tourism, catering, and other seasonal occupations can receive unemployment benefits.
这场大流行加剧了全球范围内先前存在的健康和社会经济不平等。为了减轻极端隔离和防控措施的影响，各国政府已采取措施保护健康、经济、就业以及社会弱势群体。应将健康危机视为一个契机，以确保普遍获得健康和社会经济保障。本综述的目的是介绍大流行如何导致全球健康不平等状况恶化，同时影响健康、经济和教育领域的社会保护以及其他因素、所产生的影响和采取的措施，以便将希腊在社会保护方面因大流行而面临的后果与欧洲其他国家进行比较。
采用横断面文献研究，使用“COVID-19”“健康不平等”“社会保护”和“社会标识符”等关键词和短语。通过谷歌学术、PubMed、健康链接和爱思唯尔等搜索引擎，使用希腊语或英语进行搜索。评估阅读使用的文章总数为30篇。纳入标准为免费全文荟萃分析、综述和系统评价。
研究发现，美国社会弱势群体的预期寿命低于特权社会群体，发病率更高，因为经济、健康和社会文化不稳定是主要死因。患有基础疾病的患者是弱势群体，会增加感染冠状病毒的风险，并且常常因疾病并发症导致死亡。在所有欧盟国家中，希腊的就业情况排名第四差，就业率为61.10%。死亡人数显著增加，从2018年至今的百分比变化为17.50%。在失业领域，希腊在欧盟国家中也排名第三差，而女性的失业率为13.50%，排名第二差。由于大流行采取的极端措施（减少工作时间、隔离）导致家庭过度劳累和负债累累，进而导致失业、收入损失、贫困、社会不平等加剧以及对残疾人的照料恶化。由于学校关闭和学校膳食缺失，儿童面临粮食不安全问题。大流行还导致许多儿童在父母因COVID-而死亡后成为孤儿，学校关闭使心理社会问题更加严重。
大流行加剧了长期存在的健康和社会经济不平等，向各国政府强调了采取有助于解决这些问题的政治战略的必要性。希腊已采取了劳动保护和失业福利措施，例如将失业者和长期失业者的补贴期延长两个月。还缩短了最低保险天数，以便从事旅游业、餐饮和其他季节性职业的公民能够领取失业福利。
