A qualitative study on health stigma and discrimination in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic: Lessons learnt from a public health perspective

BACKGROUND: Stigmatisation, misinformation and discrimination have been magnified globally due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The healthcare sector was not spared from this. We conducted a transnational study, using the Health Stigma and Discrimination framework (HSDF) to explore public perception and reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic in a multicultural context. Findings from the Asian arm of the study, sited in Singapore, are reported in this paper. METHODS: This phenomenological research deployed semi-structured informant interviews using non-probability sampling approaches to recruit members of the public. Interviews were coded independently by two researchers and thematic analysis was used to analyse the responses. RESULTS: Twenty-nine members of the public (23–80 years old) were interviewed between Oct 2020 to Feb 2021. Five major themes were identified: (i) perception of stigma amongst respondents, (ii) experiences of stigma amongst respondents, (iii) views on what drove stigma and misinformation, (iv) facilitators in preventing and reducing stigma and misinformation, and (v) ageist attitudes towards older adults. Overall, construction workers living in dormitories, healthcare workers, and to some extent tourists from China, were perceived to have been stigmatised and shunned by the public. Place-based stigmatisation was common; participants responded by avoiding places that had confirmed cases of COVID-19. Perceived stigma was temporary and not enduring, driven at the outset by fear of being infected. This study also identified the role played by trust in reducing stigmatisation. The relative absence of politicising of issues and high-quality information readily disseminated to the public were reported as factors that could have reduced and prevented stigma and misinformation on the various groups. Ageist attitudes were observed in some participants with older adults being labelled as vulnerable, susceptible to misinformation and being less able to cope during the pandemic. CONCLUSION: Through the lens of the HSDF, this study provided an exploratory account of the nature of stigma that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic in an Asian context. It also shed light on facilitators in preventing and reducing stigma during an outbreak especially the role of trust and communications during a public health crisis.