A call for a gender-responsive, intersectional approach to address COVID-19
Nessa Ryan, Alison M. El Ayadi
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbates existing health inequities, including gender disparities, and we must learn from previous global public health threats to build a gender-responsive, intersectional approach to address immediate and long-term consequences. While a narrow gender focus alone can reinforce binary and competing understandings of disease burden by gender, an intersectionality approach encourages understanding of the dimensions of power, historical structural inequalities, and the role of social determinants and lived experience to inform a multidimensional, gender-informed response to this and future emerging infectious diseases. We provide specific, actionable recommendations for critical healthcare, public health, and policy to use an intersectional approach to COVID-19 pandemic preparedness, response and resiliency.