Answers to Your Key Questions on the Relationship between Covid-19, Data, Sex and Gender
As the struggle against Covid-19 continues, it has become increasingly clear that while we’re “all in this together”, the impact and burden falls more heavily on some. Sex and gender intersect with other identities and experiences, from race and ethnicity to occupation and socioeconomic status, to shape both the primary and secondary impacts of Covid-19,. To understand and ultimately tackle the pandemic, clear, consistent and disaggregated data is essential.
Responding to this need, Global Health 50/50 developed the sex-disaggregated covid-19 tracker as a key resource to understanding the gendered impacts of Covid-19. Covering over 100 countries (to date), it is a live tracker that collects and reports data on cases, deaths, hospitalisations, ICU admissions and infections among healthcare workers by sex. It also tracks data by both sex and age on cases and deaths. As the most comprehensive tracker of national Covid-19 sex-disaggregated data, it has been covered extensively by international and national media and plays a central role in promoting and informing public and policy dialogue on the role of sex and gender in the Covid-19 pandemic.
Several common questions, points of interest and conversations have emerged from the findings of the tracker, so we’ve rounded up a series of media coverage and interviews below that explore these in more depth.
What does the data tracker reveal and why do sex and gender matter to Covid-19?
Here’s why the coronavirus may be killing more men than women. The US should take note, CNN: In a collaboration between Global Health 50/50 and CNN, this article analyzes publicly available data from 20 countries to understand why men appear to be dying at a higher rate than women from Covid-19.
Sex, gender and COVID-19: Disaggregated data and health disparities, BMJ Global Health: Global Health 50/50 members explore how sex and gender matter to clinical pathways and outcomes associated with Covid-19 and the importance of accurate and consistent data.
Sex, gender and COVID-19, UK Research and Innovation, UKRI: An in-depth look at Global Health 50/50 Covid-19 tracker findings.
World Business Report, BBC World Service: Co-Director Professor Sarah Hawkes discusses the need for sex-disaggregated data and key insights from the Global Health 50/50 tracker (9 minutes onwards).
Gender blind’ coronavirus policies could hinder disease fight, SciDev: A discussion of how analysing the gendered impacts of coronavirus could be key in fighting the disease.
Are men more at risk of Covid-19 infection?
Why is coronavirus killing more men than women?, WIRED: Sabrina Weiss explores how biology, lifestyle and behaviour could be contributing factors to Covid-19 vulnerability using key data and insights from the Global Health 50/50 tracker.
Researchers Study Why Men Seem To Be More Affected By COVID-19, NPR: Health correspondent David Greene speaks to Sarah Hawkes about the gendered impacts of Covid-19 and why it seems to be having a disproportionate impact on men.
Gender and COVID-19, ABC Late Night Live: Philip Adams speaks to writer and advocate Caroline Criado Perez alongside GH5050’s Professor Hawkes, asking why men’s greater risk of death from COVID-19 is not being adequately monitored or considered in COVID-19 responses.
Coronavirus Killing Men At Twice The Rate Of Women In England And Wales, Huffington Post: An exploration of why men are more at risk than women using data and insights from Global Health 50/50.
No Gender Equality: Why COVID-19 Appears to Be Far More Deadly for Men Than Women, Sputnik News: An interview with Dr Bharat Pankhania and Prof Sarah Hawkes which explores why men are more likely to die from coronavirus than women.
How does Covid-19 reveal gender disparities and inequalities in the healthcare workforce?
COVID-19 susceptibility, women, and work, Vox EU: Graziella Bertocchi explores the gendered dimensions of economic responses to Covid-19 using key sex-disaggregated data by Global Health 50/50.
The gender question, the novel outbreak, The China Current with James Chau: James and Sarah discuss the varied ways that gender intersects with the Covid-19 pandemic.
The women fighting Covid-19: Pandemic highlights lack of female representation, FRANCE 24 English: A look at the lack of women leaders in the scientific and medical fields and what it means for the fight against Covid-19, with Sarah Hawkes.
Why has Covid-19 hit us so hard?
Misaligned Priorities & Gender Inequalities Formed “Cracks” That Contributed To COVID-19 Pandemic, Health Policy Watch: As the governments around the world struggle to control surging Covid-19 outbreaks, this article uses Global Health 50/50 data to expose the cracks in global health systems that created conditions ripe for the pandemic.
