COVID-19 Policy and Practice
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Public Health Crises Exacerbated by the Mixed Messages of U.S. Pandemic Policy in 2020 and 2021: The Effect of a Weak US Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Mental Health of Low-Wage and Gig Workers View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Chauncey McGlathery
The unprecedented health and economic crisis has demonstrated the dire vulnerability of all low-wage and gig workers in the United States. The experience of Black workers in the American South is not the exception to this rule. Many of these workers often cannot easily access public assistance and often are not likely to find social services without experiencing months without a livable wage. When they receive few health benefits with their labor and little consideration for their humanity, these gig workers have few places to turn for help, leaving them in a far worse predicament in 2021 than any other time in recent memory. Using the teachings of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell, as opposed to the traditional Freudian approach to thinking about our life’s journey, public health advocates can employ inner work strategies to help these workers repair their brokenness and avoid the predicted mental health crisis developing. on the margins of this global pandemic. "Disruption" happens when a life event throws one into chaos, as described by Jordan Peterson in Reality and the Sacred. In this paper I demonstrate how the lessons of "The Hero's Journey" can be applied as a supporting system by public health service providers to prevent further crisis of physical, mental, and psychological health.
The Covid-19 Pandemic in Brazil: Brazilian Social Worker Perspectives View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Maria Isabel Barros Bellini
Social Work began formal activities in Brazil in 1936 when the feeling of dissatisfaction among the working class was growing potently. The profession created its space serving the interests of the ruling class. The professionals focused on the control and the return of the misfits to normal life, they acted on the individual behavior and personalities of the individuals. A blaming, punitive and disciplinary practice. From the 1960s, the profession begins a movement of rupture with the elite and the current power and assumes the uncompromising defense of the working class based on Critical Social Theory. This study presents data on a bibliographic review of the production of Social Work in the period 2020-2021 on the Covid-19 pandemic and its reflexes in Brazil. The results show that professionals increasingly defend public policies, denounce the neoliberal agenda of the Brazilian government and the broad setback of the rights of the Brazilian population, denounce the systematic attacks of the federal government on science, nature, workers and the needs of society. population. The challenge pointed out is the deep crisis that Brazil is experiencing and that transcends the pandemic due to the neoliberal policy that increases the economic crisis and brutalizes the working and living conditions of the majority of the Brazilian people, expanding social inequality. It is highlighted in the production the possibilities of confrontation and resistance as socio-educational actions aimed at the population's access to services and social rights and encouraging collective practices of social control.
Disability Stigma and COVID-19 Response: Impact of Early Resource Allocation Policies and Recommendations for Countering Stigma in Public Health Crisis View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Andjela Kaur
This study examines the intersection between disability stigma and early responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. The paper analyzes a key text, the Department of Human Services Office of Civil Right’s Bulletin, the document which provided initial guidance on an inclusive response to crisis. Further, it discusses several early stigma-based resource allocation policies, and notes ways that disability stigma negatively affected disabled people at the onset of the pandemic. Finally, it suggests three interventions to reduce disability stigma on individual, organizational, and system levels.
COVID-19 and the Clash over Scientific and Social Values View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session James A. Marcum
The COVID-19 pandemic has not only been a challenge to global health but also to how science is regarded in a diverse and often polarized society, especially in the United States. The latter challenge specifically pertains to how science is utilized to inform public policies on tackling the pandemic. Two opposing poles have emerged in response to COVID-19 vis-à-vis science’s public status. The first pole involves scientific experts who influence public policies in terms of individual and social behavior, such as masks, lockdowns, and vaccination, while the second pole includes those who espouse anti-science rhetoric and are generally labelled as anti-vaxxers. Specifically, what has surfaced during the pandemic is the clash of values between the scientific and social sectors. The main scientific value is public health and involves obtaining precise information on the biology of the virus and its transmission and virulence. With such information, measures, such as vaccine development, can be developed to stem the spread and lethality of the virus. The chief social values of a dissenting and skeptical public, such as anti-vaccine activists, pertain to individual freedom and autonomy or independence. Governmental measures, like mandatory vaccination based on science, have certainly clashed with these values. In other words, anti-vaccine activists bristle at the government’s directive for compulsory vaccination for returning to pre-2019 behavior. In this paper, I explore this clash of values and propose that additional values, particularly environmental health, benevolence, welfare, and humility, are necessary for bridging the gap between the two opposing poles.
