“Too Much to Ask, Too Much to Handle”: Women’s Coping in Times of Zika

Ana Rosa Linde Arias, Elisa Tristan-Cheever, Grace Furtado and Eduardo Siqueira
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Ana Rosa Linde Arias: Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA 02125-3393, USA
Elisa Tristan-Cheever: Cambridge Health Alliance, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
Grace Furtado: Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA 02125-3393, USA
Eduardo Siqueira: School for the Environment, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA 02125-3393, USA

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 12, 1-12

Abstract: Zika virus infection during pregnancy is a cause of congenital brain abnormalities. Its consequences for pregnancies have made governments and both national and international agencies issue advice and recommendations to women. This study was designed to understand the impacts of Zika on women who were less directly affected and less vulnerable to Zika. Women were recruited from various locations in Brazil, Puerto Rico, and the United States. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis. Women perceived that public health systems placed an unfair responsibility for preventing health complications from Zika onto women who had limited ability to do so. They also stated that the measures recommended to them were invasive, while creating the perception that women were the sole determinant of whether they contracted Zika. The results indicate that women with higher levels of education understood the limitations of the information, government actions, and medical care they received, which ended up producing higher levels of anguish and worry. Gender inequality and discrimination must be recognized and rendered visible in the public health emergency response. The social effects of the epidemic affected women more than had been thought before and at deeper emotional levels.

Keywords: Zika; life impacts; psychosocial impacts; public health; epidemics; health protection measures; social determinants of health; cultural factors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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