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

González-Rábago, Yolanda; Cabezas-Rodríguez, Andrea; Martín, Unai

doi:10.3390/ijerph18084087

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

Yolanda González-Rábago

^1,2

Andrea Cabezas-Rodríguez

^1,2,*

and

Unai Martín

^1,2

Department of Sociology and Social Work, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), 48940 Leioa, Spain

Research Group on Social Determinants of Health and Demographic Change—OPIK, 48940 Leioa, Spain

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Academic Editors: Claire E Hastie, Frederick Ho and Michael Fleming

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(8), 4087; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18084087

Received: 12 March 2021 / Revised: 26 March 2021 / Accepted: 8 April 2021 / Published: 13 April 2021

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Unintended Consequences of the COVID-19 Pandemic, on the Health and Wellbeing of Children and Young People)

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Abstract

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. View Full-Text

Keywords: childhood; social inequalities; health-related behaviors; housing conditions; confinement; COVID-19; equity

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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MDPI and ACS Style

González-Rábago, Y.; Cabezas-Rodríguez, A.; Martín, U. Social Inequalities in Health Determinants in Spanish Children during the COVID-19 Lockdown. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18, 4087. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18084087

AMA Style

González-Rábago Y, Cabezas-Rodríguez A, Martín U. Social Inequalities in Health Determinants in Spanish Children during the COVID-19 Lockdown. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2021; 18(8):4087. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18084087

Chicago/Turabian Style

González-Rábago, Yolanda, Andrea Cabezas-Rodríguez, and Unai Martín. 2021. "Social Inequalities in Health Determinants in Spanish Children during the COVID-19 Lockdown" International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18, no. 8: 4087. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18084087

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