Speaker
Description
The covid-19 pandemic has undoubtedly exacted grave negative impacts on economies and health systems. Indeed, the World Bank projected global economic growth to shrink by 8% because of the pandemic with low-income countries bearing the brunt. While many national economies are struggling to recover from the ravages of the pandemic, the loss of sources of livelihoods by individuals and families due to the pandemic could have deleterious health outcomes. The objective of this study consequently was to explore the impacts of lost income due to the pandemic on the psychosocial health of populations in low- and middle-income countries using Guinea as a case study. To achieve this, we fitted logistic regression models on a cross-sectional sample data of 1903 adults Guineans, which was collected in 2023. Findings show that Guineas who lost all their income or reduced due to the pandemic were significantly more likely to report poor psychosocial health compared to those whose income did not change. Compared to respondents from Conakry, those from other regions were more likely to report poor health outcomes. Rural residents and women were also more likely to report poor psychosocial health than urban residents and men respectively. When the data was analyzed by gender, men who lost all their income or reduced were still significantly more likely to report poor psychosocial health but there was no difference among women. Our findings showed geographic and gendered nuances of the economic effects of the pandemic on health within populations and calls for tailored policy interventions.
