Poverty is "a substantial factor"
in the geographical spread of COVID-19 in many regions of Italy,
France, Germany, Ireland and the United Kingdom, according to
the results of a new study conducted as part of the ESPON
programme, which specialises in research into EU regional
policy.
The study maps out the spread of the pandemic in Europe and
explains its development in the light of a series of indicators
that describe the socio-economic situation, from the level of
urbanization to the quality of health services and local
governance and life expectancy, which "seems to have affected
the seriousness of the pandemic, especially in Portuguese and
Spanish regions and, to a lesser degree, in Germany, Austria,
the Netherlands and Sweden".
Poverty was among the factors too.
The research highlighted how, above all, a low level of
schooling influences the transmissibility of the virus.
"Poor people with a low level education probably have a low
level of health literacy," the researchers wrote, citing a study
on the importance of comprehension of social responsibility in
relation to the respect of the measures imposed to contain the
pandemic, such as social distancing.
All these factors help to explain why, even though the pandemic
is "global", it "took on the form of intense local epidemics".
This also led to "significant consequences for the management of
the crisis and the political response".
This evidence led the researchers to recommend the strengthening
of "the local dimension of public health policy" and a
"polycentric organization of access to health services" that is
able to tackle inequality in access to care.
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