Social science & medicine
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Social science & medicine · Mar 2021
Can a COVID-19 vaccine live up to Americans' expectations? A conjoint analysis of how vaccine characteristics influence vaccination intentions.
A vaccine for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) could prove critical in establishing herd immunity. While past work has documented the prevalence and correlates of vaccine refusal, I assess how a less explored topic -- properties of vaccines themselves (e.g., national origin, efficacy, risk of side effects) -- might influence vaccination intentions. This information can help public health officials preempt differential intentions to vaccinate, and inform health communication campaigns that encourage vaccine uptake. ⋯ Americans' preferences for a novel coronavirus vaccine may be at odds with the vaccine that ultimately hits the market, posing both policy and health communication challenges for vaccination uptake.
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Social science & medicine · Mar 2021
The health impacts of eviction: Evidence from the national longitudinal study of adolescent to adult health.
Eviction represents an urgent social and economic issue in the United States, with nearly two million evictions occurring annually in the U. S. Still, the population health impacts of evictions, as well as the pathways linking eviction to health, are not well documented or understood, particularly among young adults. ⋯ In the first difference models, young people who experienced eviction between survey waves experienced greater increases in depressive symptoms over time compared to those who were not evicted, net of changes in other indicators of socioeconomic status and residential instability. Taken together, our results suggest that the recent surges in evictions in the U. S. serve as a potent threat to population health during the emerging adult period, with especially devastating consequences for low-income individuals and communities of color.
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This commentary addresses the possibilities and pitfalls of putting intersectionality and syndemics into conversation with each other. We engage with two studies published in this issue: the first on the health-related vulnerabilities among LGBTQ + Latinx men in Orlando after the Pulse nightclub shooting, and the other on syndemic health issues brought about by social and structural inequities among young Black gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (GBM). Both manuscripts suggest that intersectionality and sydemics can be integrated or possibly merged to build effective health equity focused interventions for marginalized populations. ⋯ Second, we argue that assumptions of common ground between intersectionality and syndemics rest on equating theories of interaction and additivity with critiques of mutual configurations of ideology, power structures, and social categories. Finally, we maintain that if intersectionality and syndemics are to be in conversation with each other, it must be done with the recognition and examination of where each framework situates itself relative to methodology, praxis, and power. Using our own work and those of intersectional feminist scholars, we demonstrate how the stakes of intersectionality diverge radically from those of syndemics, and how syndemics has the potential to undermine the significance of intersectionality for addressing issues of health equity.
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Social science & medicine · Feb 2021
Analysing the intersection between health emergencies and abortion during Zika in Brazil, El Salvador and Colombia.
The Zika outbreak of 2015-7 is a lens to analyse the positioning of abortion within in global health security. The sequelae of the virus almost exclusively affected newborn children, manifested through Congenital Zika Syndrome (CZS), and a focus on women at risk of, planning or being pregnant. At the global level, debate considered whether Zika would provide impetus for regulatory change for reproductive rights in Latin America, a region with some of the most restrictive abortion regulation in the world. ⋯ We consider this within literature on global health security, and the prioritisation of a particular approach to epidemic control. Within this securitized landscape, despite increased public debate about abortion regulatory change, no meaningful change occurred, due to a dominant epidemiological approach to the Zika health emergency in all three countries and prominent conservative forces in government and within anti-abortion rights movements. Simultaneously, we demonstrate that regulation did not deter all women from seeking such service clandestinely.
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Social science & medicine · Feb 2021
Efficacy as safety: Dominant cultural assumptions and the assessment of contraceptive risk.
To reduce rates of unintended pregnancy, medical and public health associations endorse a contraceptive counseling model that ranks birth control methods by failure rate. This tiered model outlines all forms of birth control but recommends long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARC) to eliminate user error and increase continuation. Our critical discourse analysis of gynecology textbooks and medical recommendations examines how gendered and neoliberal ideas influence risk assessments underlying the tiered contraceptive counseling model. ⋯ Combined, these assessments downplay side effects (i.e., medical risks), suggesting that LARC and other pharma-contraceptives are worth the risk to protect cisgender women from their fertile bodies and to guard society against unintended pregnancy. Through this process, ranking birth control methods by failure rates rather than by side effects or reproductive autonomy becomes logical as efficacy is equated with safety for cisgender women and society. Our analysis reveals how technoscientific solutions are promoted to address social problems, and how informed contraceptive choice is diminished when pharma-contraceptives are framed as the most logical option without cogent descriptions of their associated risks.