Identity and COVID-19 in Canada: Gender, ethnicity, and minority status

Roland Pongou; Bright Opoku Ahinkorah; Marie Christelle Mabeu; Arunika Agarwal; Stéphanie Maltais; Aissata Boubacar Moumouni; Sanni Yaya

doi:10.1371/journal.pgph.0001156

Identity and COVID-19 in Canada: Gender, ethnicity, and minority status

PLOS Glob Public Health. 2023 May 24;3(5):e0001156. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgph.0001156. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Roland Pongou¹, Bright Opoku Ahinkorah², Marie Christelle Mabeu³, Arunika Agarwal⁴, Stéphanie Maltais^{5

6}, Aissata Boubacar Moumouni¹, Sanni Yaya^{5

7}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
² School of Public Health, Faculty of Health, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, NSW, Australia.
³ Department of Economics, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States of America.
⁴ Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, United States of America.
⁵ School of International Development and Global Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
⁶ The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
⁷ The George Institute for Global Health, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

Abstract

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, growing evidence from the United States, the United Kingdom, and China has demonstrated the unequal social and economic burden of this health crisis. Yet, in Canada, studies assessing the socioeconomic and demographic determinants of COVID-19, and how these determinants vary by gender and ethnic minority status, remain scarce. As new strains of COVID-19 emerge, it is important to understand the disparities to be able to initiate policies and interventions that target and prioritise the most at-risk sub-populations.

Aim: The objective of this study is to assess the socioeconomic and demographic factors associated with COVID-19-related symptoms in Canada, and how these determinants vary by identity factors including gender and visible minority status.

Methods: We implemented an online survey and collected a nationally representative sample of 2,829 individual responses. The original data collected via the SurveyMonkey platform were analysed using a cross-sectional study. The outcome variables were COVID-19-related symptoms among respondents and their household members. The exposure variables were socioeconomic and demographic factors including gender and ethnicity as well as age, province, minority status, level of education, total annual income in 2019, and number of household members. Descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, and multivariable logistic regression analyses were performed to test the associations. The results were presented as adjusted odds ratios (aORs) at p < 0.05 and a 95% confidence interval.

Results: We found that the odds of having COVID-19-related symptoms were higher among respondents who belong to mixed race [aOR = 2.77; CI = 1.18-6.48] and among those who lived in provinces other than Ontario and Quebec [aOR = 1.88; CI = 1.08-3.28]. There were no significant differences in COVID-19 symptoms between males and females, however, we did find a significant association between the province, ethnicity, and reported COVID-19 symptoms for female respondents but not for males. The likelihood of having COVID-19-related symptoms was also lower among respondents whose total income was $100,000 or more in 2019 [aOR = 0.18; CI = 0.07-0.45], and among those aged 45-64 [aOR = 0.63; CI = 0.41-0.98] and 65-84 [aOR = 0.42; CI = 0.28-0.64]. These latter associations were stronger among non-visible minorities. Among visible minorities, being black or of the mixed race and living in Alberta were associated with higher odds of COVID-19-related symptoms.

Conclusion: We conclude that ethnicity, age, total income in 2019, and province were significantly associated with experiencing COVID-19 symptoms in Canada. The significance of these determinants varied by gender and minority status. Considering our findings, it will be prudent to have COVID-19 mitigation strategies including screening, testing, and other prevention policies targeted toward the vulnerable populations. These strategies should also be designed to be specific to each gender category and ethnic group, and to account for minority status.

Copyright: © 2023 Pongou et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada's Partnership Engage Grant # 231377-190299-2001 (RP) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada's Insight Grants # 231415-190299-2001 (RP). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.