Infectious disease outbreak related stigma and discrimination during the COVID-19 pandemic: drivers, facilitators, manifestations, and outcomes across the worldFacilitators, Manifestations, and Outcomes across the World

Abstract

Being part of a social minority (e.g. migrants, people of color or Asian descent in Western countries) is not itself a risk factor for contracting Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). However, certain groups of people across the world are being targeted by COVID-19 related stigma (COS) and discrimination, what constitutes a growing concern(Bagcchi, 2020). There is an urgent need to better understand it, as it may pose as a barrier for accessing testing and health care and for maintaining treatment adherence(Stangl et al., 2019). It is very likely that COS is the consequence of multiple socioecological drivers (e.g., fear, misinformation) and facilitators (e.g., racism, poverty)(Logie, 2020). In this letter, we attempt to explore COS related factors based on the real-life experiences of a group of psychiatrists from thirteen countries using the health stigma and discrimination framework (HSDF)(Stangl et al., 2019). We categorized these experiences as per the process domains