For this week’s blog, I will be analyzing an article by the Cape Times titled “Women’s reproductive health disrupted by Covid-19 pandemic”. The article argues that the psychological burden caused by the pandemic has resulted in a disruption in female reproductive health, citing research presented at the Society for Endocrinology annual conference in Edinburgh.

“Stress is a known factor that can disturb women’s menstrual cycles by affecting hormone levels, as well as causing sleep and body weight disturbances,” says the article. The premise of the article’s argument is based on the correlation between the psychological and reproductive health of women, as identified by the research.

As part of the research, Dr. Lisa Owens and Dr. Michelle Mahir surveyed 1300 women in April 2021 to investigate changes in depression, anxiety, sleep quality, and menstrual cycles. The survey results are as follows: 56% reported an overall change in their menstrual cycles since the beginning of the pandemic; 64% reported a worsening in pre-menstrual symptoms; 54% reported reduced sex drive. Additionally, compared to pre-pandemic times, the rates of depression, anxiety, and poor sleep had more than doubled.

While the article correctly cites statistics discovered during the survey making them valid, it is the validity of the survey method itself which would make the results dubious in the eyes of statisticians. Firstly, the sample size of 1300 is simply not large enough to make a general hypothesis for the larger population of women. Secondly, neither the article nor the actual research itself mentions if other factors such as age and chronic diseases were taken into account. Moreover, even social factors such as ethnicity, race, and economic background could arguably have affected stress levels among women especially since the pandemic affected certain social groups disproportionately. Thirdly, when speaking about pre-pandemic times, the research does not mention if the data regarding depression, anxiety, and poor sleep was collected from the same sample of women.

However, regardless of the flaws within the data collection method, the survey’s results and the article’s main argument that the pandemic adversely affected female reproductive health make sense. The article also mentions that the research team is planning to conduct these surveys every 6 months to “determine progress and identify any longer-term effects on female reproductive and mental health”. New variables in the form of “more objective measurements of blood pressure, weight, sex hormone levels, and ovulation” will also be added to the survey. This will increase the validity of the resulting statistics.

As for the article, overall, the main argument makes sense, but some of the information is redundant and repetitive. Perhaps, changing the structure and organization of the article would improve this. In certain places, I also noticed the article was quoting directly from the research but without the use of quotation marks which could lead to plagiarism charges. Regardless, the article does convince the readers that further studies to investigate the long-term impact of the pandemic on female reproductive health are necessary.

“As we gain on covid, we’re losing ground against diseases we’ve already defeated”, says an article by The Washington Post.

The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the spread of vaccine-preventable diseases such as Measles and Polio which we’ve already created global immunity for. This is due to two reasons: pandemic-induced disruption of routine childhood vaccinations and an increase in vaccine hesitancy due to the politicization of the Covid vaccines.

In 2019, the World Health Organization listed vaccine hesitancy as one of 10 threats to global health in the Thirteenth General Program of Work for the five-year period 2019-2023. Due to “aggressive antivaccination campaigns”, vaccine-preventable diseases such as Measles were on the rise. Between 2015 to 2019, Measles cases had increased by 50% worldwide. Even in the United States where the disease was eliminated in 2000, 1300 cases were reported.

Of course, the unforeseen Covid pandemic made this threat a lot worse.

According to The Washington Post article, the Covid-19 pandemic “supercharged this movement” by “providing fertile ground for anti-vaccine advocates as well as politically-driven, state-sponsored disinformation actors”.

One big challenge standing in the way of achieving global immunity against Covid is “the alignment of vaccine uptake with political ideology”. In the United States, this reflects in the red-blue political vaccine gap: 90 percent of Democrats are in favor of vaccinating their children compared to only 19 percent of Republicans. This divide is not only impacting immunity against Covid but also other diseases.  A YouGov poll shows that now fewer than half of Republicans are in support of childhood vaccines – representing a 13 point decline since 2019.

Additionally, red states such as Nebraska and Montana are passing new legislation to make exemptions from childhood vaccine requirements easier. 11 states have also filed lawsuits in response to Biden’s Covid vaccine mandate for businesses. In mid-October, West Virginia passed a bill forcing businesses to allow employees exemptions from the vaccines. Recently, Iowa passed a similar bill allowing employees to seek religious and medical exemptions from Covid-19 vaccine mandates.

Coming back to vaccine-preventable diseases, in July, WHO reported that more than 23 million children missed out on immunizations in 2020. Whether this was due to a disruption of health services or growing vaccine hesitancy – or both as per The Washington Post article – this news is alarming.

The article also explains how the percentage of vaccinated required for global immunity is different for different diseases: 95 percent for measles, 80 percent for polio etc. Regardless, the decrease in childhood immunizations threatens both global health and global economy (by increasing the likelihood of disease poverty).

Overall, the article makes a strong argument and successfully argues that Covid-19 has caused a rise in other diseases due to a decrease in immunizations. Although the article correctly identifies vaccine hesitancy and disruption of health services as the leading cause for this, my only criticism is the lack of mention of the global vaccine divide and how this links to vaccine hesitancy and disruption of health services.

The article has also substantiated the main argument with ample statistics which are relevant and correct as I have fact checked. However, it does not include statistics to show the supposed “rise” in other diseases, for example, stats related to the total number of measles cases reported this year or references to case studies where a certain disease was misdiagnosed. Adding these stats would have helped make the main argument sounder.

Earlier this year, President Joe Biden expressed his commitment to “advance racial equity and support underserved communities”. One of the goals he listed was closing the racial gap in healthcare especially following the effects of covid-19 which disproportionately impacted non-White communities.

Recently, a White House fact sheet was released crediting Biden’s government for closing the racial coronavirus vaccination rate since May. “Now Black, Brown and White rates for first injections are all in the 70 percent-plus range”, it says – representing an increase of 14 percent for both Black Americans and Hispanics.

However, are we looking at the right data to make this assertion? Or better still, do we have enough data to make this assertion?

For this week’s blog, I will mainly look at an article titled “Lacking data hinders Biden’s push for racial equity in health care”, published by The Washington Post on October 23. The article quotes stats thathighlight the disparity between the covid-19 death rates of White and non-White people: “death rate among Black people is two times greater; Hispanic people, 2.3 times; Native Americans, 2.4 times.” This data is taken from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A study conducted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found “racial and ethnic data gaps” in the testing rates, cases, hospitalizations, deaths, and even vaccinations reported to the CDC. “Race and ethnicity information sent to CDC was incomplete for almost half of reported COVID-19 cases (47.2 percent),” said the report.

Earlier in 2019, GAO had reported “weaknesses in the completeness and accuracy” of Department of Veterans Affairs health records, which included “conflicting race and ethnicity information.” However, no attention was paid to this finding.

Today, the lack of data continues to hinder the government’s ability to identify and counter disparities and inequities within the healthcare system. It also prevents the government from taking credit for “closing gaps” when the data related to the gaps is incomplete.

Sources:

Davidson, J. (2021). Lacking data hinders Biden’s push for racial equity in health care. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/10/22/biden-federal-health-racial-equity-data/