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Social Inequalities in Health Determinants in Spanish Children during the COVID-19 Lockdown

The COVID-19 lockdown was imposed in a context of notable inequalities in the distribution of the social determinants of health. It is possible that the housing conditions in which children and their families experienced the confinement, and the adoption of healthy behaviors, may have followed unequ...

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Autores principales: González-Rábago, Yolanda, Cabezas-Rodríguez, Andrea, Martín, Unai
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8069937/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33924441
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18084087
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author González-Rábago, Yolanda
Cabezas-Rodríguez, Andrea
Martín, Unai
author_facet González-Rábago, Yolanda
Cabezas-Rodríguez, Andrea
Martín, Unai
author_sort González-Rábago, Yolanda
collection PubMed
description The COVID-19 lockdown was imposed in a context of notable inequalities in the distribution of the social determinants of health. It is possible that the housing conditions in which children and their families experienced the confinement, and the adoption of healthy behaviors, may have followed unequal patterns. The aim was to describe social inequalities in housing conditions and in health-related behaviors among children during the lockdown in Spain. This cross-sectional study was based on data from an online survey collecting information on the child population (3–12 years) living in Spain (n = 10,765). The outcome variables used were several housing conditions and health-related behaviors. The socioeconomic variables used were financial difficulties and parents’ educational level. Crude prevalence and prevalence ratios estimated using Poisson models were calculated. During lockdown, children from families with low educational levels and financial difficulties not only tended to live in poor housing conditions, but were also exposed to negative health determinants such as noise and tobacco smoke; they took less physical exercise, had a poorer diet, spent more time in front of screens and had less social contact. A notable social gradient was found in most of the variables analyzed. The results point to the need to incorporate the perspective of equity in the adoption of policies in order to avoid the increase of pre-existing social inequalities in the context of a pandemic.
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spelling pubmed-80699372021-04-26 Social Inequalities in Health Determinants in Spanish Children during the COVID-19 Lockdown González-Rábago, Yolanda Cabezas-Rodríguez, Andrea Martín, Unai Int J Environ Res Public Health Article The COVID-19 lockdown was imposed in a context of notable inequalities in the distribution of the social determinants of health. It is possible that the housing conditions in which children and their families experienced the confinement, and the adoption of healthy behaviors, may have followed unequal patterns. The aim was to describe social inequalities in housing conditions and in health-related behaviors among children during the lockdown in Spain. This cross-sectional study was based on data from an online survey collecting information on the child population (3–12 years) living in Spain (n = 10,765). The outcome variables used were several housing conditions and health-related behaviors. The socioeconomic variables used were financial difficulties and parents’ educational level. Crude prevalence and prevalence ratios estimated using Poisson models were calculated. During lockdown, children from families with low educational levels and financial difficulties not only tended to live in poor housing conditions, but were also exposed to negative health determinants such as noise and tobacco smoke; they took less physical exercise, had a poorer diet, spent more time in front of screens and had less social contact. A notable social gradient was found in most of the variables analyzed. The results point to the need to incorporate the perspective of equity in the adoption of policies in order to avoid the increase of pre-existing social inequalities in the context of a pandemic. MDPI 2021-04-13 /pmc/articles/PMC8069937/ /pubmed/33924441 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18084087 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
González-Rábago, Yolanda
Cabezas-Rodríguez, Andrea
Martín, Unai
Social Inequalities in Health Determinants in Spanish Children during the COVID-19 Lockdown
title Social Inequalities in Health Determinants in Spanish Children during the COVID-19 Lockdown
title_full Social Inequalities in Health Determinants in Spanish Children during the COVID-19 Lockdown
title_fullStr Social Inequalities in Health Determinants in Spanish Children during the COVID-19 Lockdown
title_full_unstemmed Social Inequalities in Health Determinants in Spanish Children during the COVID-19 Lockdown
title_short Social Inequalities in Health Determinants in Spanish Children during the COVID-19 Lockdown
title_sort social inequalities in health determinants in spanish children during the covid-19 lockdown
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8069937/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33924441
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18084087
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