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Social inequalities in mental and physical health derived from the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain beyond SARS-CoV-2 infection

BACKGROUND: Understanding the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on health involves conducting longitudinal studies to evaluate the inequalities that may have been exacerbated by the pandemic. The purpose of this study was to estimate differences in physical and mental health derived from the COVID-19 pa...

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Autores principales: Moreira, Isabel, Ferrer, Montse, Vilagut, Gemma, Mortier, Philippe, Felez-Nobrega, Mireia, Domènech-Abella, Joan, Haro, Josep-Maria, Alonso, Jordi
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10367254/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37488575
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12939-023-01933-3
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author Moreira, Isabel
Ferrer, Montse
Vilagut, Gemma
Mortier, Philippe
Felez-Nobrega, Mireia
Domènech-Abella, Joan
Haro, Josep-Maria
Alonso, Jordi
author_facet Moreira, Isabel
Ferrer, Montse
Vilagut, Gemma
Mortier, Philippe
Felez-Nobrega, Mireia
Domènech-Abella, Joan
Haro, Josep-Maria
Alonso, Jordi
author_sort Moreira, Isabel
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Understanding the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on health involves conducting longitudinal studies to evaluate the inequalities that may have been exacerbated by the pandemic. The purpose of this study was to estimate differences in physical and mental health derived from the COVID-19 pandemic, beyond SARS-CoV-2 infection, in the Spanish general population according to the participants’ level of education; and to assess the evolution of these differences from June 2020 (just after the lockdown) to nine months later (February-March 2021). METHODS: This is a longitudinal prospective study of a representative sample of non-institutionalized Spanish adults, through computer-assisted telephone interviews. Mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain/discomfort and anxiety/depression problems were measured with EQ-5D-5L. Prevalence ratio (PR) between high and low education levels and adjusted PR were estimated by Poisson regression models. Analyses were stratified by gender. RESULTS: A total of 2,000 participants answered both surveys. Individuals with low level of education reported more health problems in both genders, and absolute inequalities remained quite constant (mobility and self-care problems) or decreased (pain/discomfort and anxiety/depression problems). The greatest relative inequalities were observed just after the lockdown, with age-adjusted PR ranging from 1.31 (95%CI 1.08–1.59) for women and 1.34 (95%CI 1.05–1.69) for men in pain/discomfort to 2.59 (95%CI 0.98–6.81) for women and 4.03 (95%CI 1.52–10.70) for men in self-care; aPR decreased after nine months for most dimensions. CONCLUSIONS: Prevalence of health problems increased during the COVID-19 pandemic in all education groups, but the increase was higher in women and men with a high level of education, suggesting that its impact appeared later in this group. Further analysis on the role of governmental economic aid given to vulnerable people might shed light on this evolution. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12939-023-01933-3.
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spelling pubmed-103672542023-07-26 Social inequalities in mental and physical health derived from the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain beyond SARS-CoV-2 infection Moreira, Isabel Ferrer, Montse Vilagut, Gemma Mortier, Philippe Felez-Nobrega, Mireia Domènech-Abella, Joan Haro, Josep-Maria Alonso, Jordi Int J Equity Health Research BACKGROUND: Understanding the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on health involves conducting longitudinal studies to evaluate the inequalities that may have been exacerbated by the pandemic. The purpose of this study was to estimate differences in physical and mental health derived from the COVID-19 pandemic, beyond SARS-CoV-2 infection, in the Spanish general population according to the participants’ level of education; and to assess the evolution of these differences from June 2020 (just after the lockdown) to nine months later (February-March 2021). METHODS: This is a longitudinal prospective study of a representative sample of non-institutionalized Spanish adults, through computer-assisted telephone interviews. Mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain/discomfort and anxiety/depression problems were measured with EQ-5D-5L. Prevalence ratio (PR) between high and low education levels and adjusted PR were estimated by Poisson regression models. Analyses were stratified by gender. RESULTS: A total of 2,000 participants answered both surveys. Individuals with low level of education reported more health problems in both genders, and absolute inequalities remained quite constant (mobility and self-care problems) or decreased (pain/discomfort and anxiety/depression problems). The greatest relative inequalities were observed just after the lockdown, with age-adjusted PR ranging from 1.31 (95%CI 1.08–1.59) for women and 1.34 (95%CI 1.05–1.69) for men in pain/discomfort to 2.59 (95%CI 0.98–6.81) for women and 4.03 (95%CI 1.52–10.70) for men in self-care; aPR decreased after nine months for most dimensions. CONCLUSIONS: Prevalence of health problems increased during the COVID-19 pandemic in all education groups, but the increase was higher in women and men with a high level of education, suggesting that its impact appeared later in this group. Further analysis on the role of governmental economic aid given to vulnerable people might shed light on this evolution. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12939-023-01933-3. BioMed Central 2023-07-24 /pmc/articles/PMC10367254/ /pubmed/37488575 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12939-023-01933-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2023, corrected publication 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Moreira, Isabel
Ferrer, Montse
Vilagut, Gemma
Mortier, Philippe
Felez-Nobrega, Mireia
Domènech-Abella, Joan
Haro, Josep-Maria
Alonso, Jordi
Social inequalities in mental and physical health derived from the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain beyond SARS-CoV-2 infection
title Social inequalities in mental and physical health derived from the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain beyond SARS-CoV-2 infection
title_full Social inequalities in mental and physical health derived from the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain beyond SARS-CoV-2 infection
title_fullStr Social inequalities in mental and physical health derived from the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain beyond SARS-CoV-2 infection
title_full_unstemmed Social inequalities in mental and physical health derived from the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain beyond SARS-CoV-2 infection
title_short Social inequalities in mental and physical health derived from the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain beyond SARS-CoV-2 infection
title_sort social inequalities in mental and physical health derived from the covid-19 pandemic in spain beyond sars-cov-2 infection
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10367254/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37488575
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12939-023-01933-3
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