IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v366y2025ics0277953624010438.html

Female versus viral: Understanding the UK gender health inequalities during the Covid-19 pandemic using e-archives

Author

Listed:
  • Qu, Chen

Abstract

Despite the development of digital health infrastructure, female health inequalities have worsened during the pandemic. This transdisciplinary study, through health, feminist, and infrastructural geographical lens, examines how gender health inequalities may have emerged or worsened during Covid-19 in the UK. This study leverages a novel web archive collection, Python coding-powered data-handling text analysis (of over 0.2 billion words), and thematic analysis to examine three themes: vaccines, social minority groups, and women’s self-care. The findings suggest that the pandemic has impacted health inequalities among British women and girls and more, in a ‘more-than-gender’ way in terms of health (care) outcomes and access. In addition to reflecting on the use of e-archives in this study including suggesting the potential of combining e-archiving, coding, natural language processing (NLP) and generative AI/Large Language Models (LLMs) in producing and analysing trans-temporal (big) datasets, I argue that a geographical crisis perspective that balances the needs of everyday life and possible crises can be considered when preparing for public health emergencies. I adopt the e-archiving of this study to rethink ‘digital health infrastructure’ as ‘actors’, ‘facilitators’, and ‘voicers’, revealing how human-computer interaction and people in the virtual realm can be infrastructure.

Suggested Citation

  • Qu, Chen, 2025. "Female versus viral: Understanding the UK gender health inequalities during the Covid-19 pandemic using e-archives," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 366(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:366:y:2025:i:c:s0277953624010438
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.117589
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953624010438
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.117589?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paschoalotto, Marco Antonio Catussi & Lazzari, Eduardo Alves & Rocha, Rudi & Massuda, Adriano & Castro, Marcia C., 2023. "Health systems resilience: is it time to revisit resilience after COVID-19?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 320(C).
    2. Oreffice, Sonia & Quintana-Domeque, Climent, 2021. "Gender inequality in COVID-19 times: evidence from UK prolific participants," Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(2), pages 261-287, June.
    3. Sophie Harman, 2016. "Ebola, gender and conspicuously invisible women in global health governance," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(3), pages 524-541, March.
    4. Baowen Xue & Anne McMunn, 2021. "Gender differences in unpaid care work and psychological distress in the UK Covid-19 lockdown," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(3), pages 1-15, March.
    5. Rosenberg, Mark W. & Wilson, Kathleen, 2000. "Gender, poverty and location: how much difference do they make in the geography of health inequalities?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 275-287, July.
    6. Brinks, Verena & Ibert, Oliver, 2020. "From Corona Virus to Corona Crisis: The Value of An Analytical and Geographical Understanding of Crisis," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 111(3), pages 275-287.
    7. Zhisheng Chen, 2023. "Ethics and discrimination in artificial intelligence-enabled recruitment practices," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-12, December.
    8. Matthew Gandy, 2005. "Cyborg Urbanization: Complexity and Monstrosity in the Contemporary City," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(1), pages 26-49, March.
    9. Danielsen, Ann Caroline & Lee, Katharine MN & Boulicault, Marion & Rushovich, Tamara & Gompers, Annika & Tarrant, Amelia & Reiches, Meredith & Shattuck-Heidorn, Heather & Miratrix, Luke W. & Richardso, 2022. "Sex disparities in COVID-19 outcomes in the United States: Quantifying and contextualizing variation," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 294(C).
    10. Smriti Prasad & Erkan Kalafat & Helena Blakeway & Rosemary Townsend & Pat O’Brien & Edward Morris & Tim Draycott & Shakila Thangaratinam & Kirsty Le Doare & Shamez Ladhani & Peter von Dadelszen & Laur, 2022. "Systematic review and meta-analysis of the effectiveness and perinatal outcomes of COVID-19 vaccination in pregnancy," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-8, December.
    11. Emily Maemura & Nicholas Worby & Ian Milligan & Christoph Becker, 2018. "If these crawls could talk: Studying and documenting web archives provenance," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 69(10), pages 1223-1233, October.
    12. Emmanouil Tranos & André Carrascal-Incera & George Willis, 2023. "Using the Web to Predict Regional Trade Flows: Data Extraction, Modeling, and Validation," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 113(3), pages 717-739, March.
    13. Verena Brinks & Oliver Ibert, 2020. "From Corona Virus to Corona Crisis: The Value of An Analytical and Geographical Understanding of Crisis," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 111(3), pages 275-287, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Suat Tuysuz & Tüzin Baycan & Fatih Altuğ, 2022. "Economic impact of the COVID-19 outbreak in Turkey: analysis of vulnerability and resilience of regions and diversely affected economic sectors," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 6(3), pages 1133-1158, October.
    2. Jennifer Kuebart, 2025. "Contested industrial relations in the airline industry in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis," European Journal of Industrial Relations, , vol. 31(3), pages 369-391, September.
    3. Paudel, Jayash, 2021. "Home Alone: Implications of COVID-19 for Mental Health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 285(C).
    4. Ulrich, Peter, 2025. "Krisenfestigkeit im deutsch-polnischen Grenzraum in Zeiten der Polykrise: Resilient-verflechtungssensible Politik- und Verwaltungskooperation bei disruptiven Ereignissen am Beispiel von Brandenburg-Lubuskie," Arbeitsberichte der ARL: Aufsätze, in: Weber, Florian & Dittel, Julia (ed.), Beyond borders: Zur Krisenfestigkeit grenzüberschreitender Verflechtungsräume, volume 38, pages 106-127, ARL – Akademie für Raumentwicklung in der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft.
    5. Dominik Kremer & Tilo Felgenhauer, 2022. "Reasoning COVID-19: the use of spatial metaphor in times of a crisis," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-15, December.
    6. Guangyue Wei, 2024. "The Features and Trends of the Economic Literature Related to COVID-19: A Bibliometric Analysis," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 15(4), pages 15904-15930, December.
    7. Monika Queisser, 2021. "COVID-19 and OECD Labour Markets: What Impact on Gender Gaps?," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 56(5), pages 249-253, September.
    8. Foliano, Francesca & Tonei, Valentina & Sevilla, Almudena, 2024. "Social restrictions, leisure and well-being," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    9. Claudia Hupkau & Barbara Petrongolo, 2020. "Work, Care and Gender during the COVID‐19 Crisis," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(3), pages 623-651, September.
    10. Livia Alfonsi & Mary Namubiru & Sara Spaziani, 2024. "Gender gaps: back and here to stay? Evidence from skilled Ugandan workers during COVID-19," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 999-1046, September.
    11. Heather Conde & James Ted McDonald, 2007. "The Health Services Use Among Older Canadians in Rural and Urban Areas," Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population Research Papers 178, McMaster University.
    12. Le Galès, Patrick & Vitale, Tommaso Prof, 2013. "Governing the large metropolis. A research agenda," SocArXiv 95zsc, Center for Open Science.
    13. Sizhan Cui & Zhuofei Lu & Senhu Wang, 2026. "Gender and Parenthood Differences in Work Time Fragmentation in the United States: The Moderating Role of Occupational Class," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 182(1), pages 1-29, March.
    14. Edgar Pieterse, 2010. "Cityness and African Urban Development," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2010-042, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    15. Yi Ding & Jie Yang & Tingting Ji & Yongyu Guo, 2021. "Women Suffered More Emotional and Life Distress than Men during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of Pathogen Disgust Sensitivity," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(16), pages 1-9, August.
    16. Rachel M. Shellabarger & Rachel C. Voss & Monika Egerer & Shun-Nan Chiang, 2019. "Challenging the urban–rural dichotomy in agri-food systems," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 36(1), pages 91-103, March.
    17. Nadia Singh & Areet Kaur, 2022. "The COVID‐19 pandemic: Narratives of informal women workers in Indian Punjab," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 388-407, March.
    18. Glückler Johannes & Wójcik Dariusz, 2023. "Seven Years of Brexit: Economic Geographies of Regional De- and Recoupling," ZFW – Advances in Economic Geography, De Gruyter, vol. 67(2-3), pages 67-75, August.
    19. Barili, E. & Bertoli, P. & Grembi, V. & Rattini, V., 2021. "COVID Angels Fighting Daily Demons? Mental Health of Healthcare Workers and Religion," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 21/05, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    20. Robert A Beauregard, 0. "Do individual cities matter? Negotiating the particular," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 13(3), pages 593-603.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:366:y:2025:i:c:s0277953624010438. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.