Unravelling the Role of Socioeconomic Forces in the Early Stage of COVID-19 Pandemic: A Global Analysis

Kostas Rontos, Maria-Eleni Syrmali and Luca Salvati
Additional contact information
Kostas Rontos: Department of Sociology, University of the Aegean and Greece, University Hill, 81100 Lesvos Mytilene, Greece
Maria-Eleni Syrmali: Department of Sociology, University of the Aegean and Greece, University Hill, 81100 Lesvos Mytilene, Greece
Luca Salvati: Department of Economics and Law, University of Macerata, Corso Cefalonia, 70, AP 63023 Fermo, Italy

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 12, 1-14

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly evolved into an acute health crisis with extensive socioeconomic and demographic consequences. The severity of the COVID-19 pandemic requires a refined (and more comprehensive) understanding of virus dissemination over space, transmission mechanisms, clinical features, and risk factors. In line with this assumption, the present study illustrates a comparative, empirical analysis of the role of socioeconomic and demographic dimensions in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic grounded on a large set of indicators comparing the background context across a global sample of countries. Results indicate that—in addition to epidemiological factors—basic socioeconomic forces significantly shaped contagions as well as hospitalization and death rates across countries. As a response to the global crisis driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, all-embracing access to healthcare services should be strengthened along with the development of sustainable health systems supported by appropriate resources and skills. The empirical findings of this study have direct implications for the coordination of on-going, global efforts aimed at containing COVID-19 (and other, future) pandemics.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; healthcare; health policy; indicators; contagions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/12/6340/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/12/6340/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:12:p:6340-:d:573386

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().