Inequality must become central to pandemic preparedness, research warns

Staff Reporter

ECONOMIC inequality, rather than traditional measures of pandemic preparedness such as laboratory capacity and emergency response systems, is the strongest predictor of how countries respond to health crises, according to new research published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The study, co-authored by global experts including Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, epidemiologist Professor Sir Michael Marmot, and Chairperson of the One Economy Foundation and former First Lady of Namibia Monica Geingos, argues that technical capacity alone is insufficient to protect societies from pandemics.

The research by the Global Council on Inequality, AIDS and Pandemics found that countries with high levels of inequality were less successful in responding to COVID-19 and HIV/AIDS, even when they had strong healthcare infrastructure and high rankings on conventional pandemic preparedness assessments.

The authors are calling for an “inequality-informed pandemic preparedness and response” approach, which recognises that social and economic conditions influence whether countries can effectively use their available health resources during a crisis.