Speaker
Description
Like many locations in the world the Government of Guinea implemented preventive steps to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in the absence of widely accessible vaccines. While these preventative efforts were essential in reducing infection rates, they had severe negative social, economic, and health impact on marginalized communities, affecting well-being and livelihoods. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of evidence exploring how public health preventive initiatives affected marginalized populations developing countries like Guinea. This study contributes to addressing this gap by exploring the economic and psycho-social effects of COVID-19 public health measures on marginalized populations. Understanding the consequences of public health emergency measures is a crucial step in comprehending how public health emergency measures affect communities in developing countries. Additionally, this knowledge is necessary to help develop or enhance fair, efficient policies and actions that minimize the detrimental effects of public health measures on people's lives and livelihoods. Using Guinea as a case study, this study adopted a qualitative approach. Information was obtained from 12 focus groups through semi-structured interviews. With the use of NVivo 12, interview data were inductively analyzed. The findings show that public health initiatives such as travel bans and business/company closures had a detrimental effect on the economy, increasing unemployment and income uncertainty. Different levels of psycho-social health issues, such as perceived work-life balance (concerning one's social life), worry over food insecurity, fear, stress, and anxiety, emerged due to the economic impacts of adopted COVID prevention strategies.
