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We don't have the data we need to better face the pandemic

In an interview with Jornal da Unicamp, José Manuel Aburto, from the University of Oxford, says that Latin American countries do not have accurate and appropriate indicators to understand the pandemic

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On the eve of the announcement by IBGE of the suspension of the researcher selection process, threatening the implementation of the 2021 Census, opening class from the Postgraduate Program in Demography at Unicamp addressed the importance of data in understanding the inequalities of the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. The speaker, Dr. José Manuel Aburto from the University of Oxford, gave an interview to Jornal da Unicamp on the topic, transcribed below.

Journal of Unicamp - Describe your academic trajectory. What is the difference between looking at Latin America from here and from Europe?

Jose Manuel Aburto - I am currently a Newton International Fellow in the Department of Sociology at the Leverhume Center for Demographic Sciences and Nuffled College at the University of Oxford. Furthermore, I am an adjunct professor at the University of Southern Denmark, where I completed my PhD in 2020. During my PhD training I was also affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, where I was a guest researcher until last year. I have interdisciplinary experience in Demography, Sociology and Public Health, acquired through research grants and academic training from the Center for Health Demography and Aging at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Sapienza University of Rome, through the European Doctoral School in Demography ( EDSD), in addition to a master's degree at Colegio de México. Part of my research focused on studying mortality processes in Latin America and, particularly, on the effect of violence on population health from an interdisciplinary perspective. These research topics are very important in our region, but it is also important to consider them from a European perspective, where levels of violence are the lowest in the world.

JU - The inequality in the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic has been announced by many since its onset in early 2020, but how have these perceptions developed so far in different countries?

JMA – The impact of the pandemic due to inequalities was predicted from the beginning. However, the magnitude of the impact was not known and we are still beginning to learn about the consequences of the pandemic on inequalities. The most vulnerable groups before the pandemic were those who had fewer resources to face the challenges that the pandemic imposed on our lives, such as, for example, not leaving home. From a macro perspective, this extends across countries as well. This means that developed countries have much more resources than developing countries with high levels of informal work, such as Brazil and Mexico. These differences will most likely increase disparities between countries, as well as between different population groups within each country.

JU – Gradually the perception gained momentum that tackling Covid-19 requires a multi or interdisciplinary approach. What are the contributions of Demography in this context?

JMA -Demography has made very important contributions. Firstly, from the beginning it contributed to the inclusion of the topic of differences between population structures to better understand the indicators on Covid-19. It has also contributed to the understanding of the infection process in different countries, by studying the structure of families and homes. The three key elements of Demography (mortality, fertility and migration) have also become very important elements for understanding the causes and consequences of the pandemic.

JU – Today it is already clear to many that general aggregate data is not sufficient to understand the pandemic. What data is needed to better understand the impacts, as well as to inform policies to combat the pandemic? What have we learned so far?

JMA – Data at the individual level, both from administrative records, public surveys and new data sources such as social networks, will be very important to understand the consequences of the pandemic in the short and long term. So far, few countries have this type of data properly. Unfortunately, in the most affected countries, such as those in Latin America, the lack of disaggregated data (by age, gender, address, among others), accurate and appropriate has been a constant since the beginning of the pandemic.

JU – Covid-19 has reduced short-term life expectancy in several countries by intensities comparable to those caused by the Second World War. What are the likely long-term effects?

JMA – The pandemic will most likely affect mortality in countries in the medium and long term, both directly and indirectly. Recent studies suggest that individuals who have been infected with the new coronavirus may experience health consequences several months after having the disease. This suggests that there will be a deterioration in the progress (decrease in the mortality rate) that has been observed in recent years. At the same time, the pandemic also hampered treatments for other illnesses, such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases, due to the saturation of the healthcare system and the fear of going to hospitals. All of these changes could impact life expectancy trends in many countries, especially those most affected by the pandemic.

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Inequalities from the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic | Image by Mohammed Hassan by Pixabay

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