Caregiving in a Pandemic: Health-Related Socioeconomic Vulnerabilities Among Women Caregivers Early in the COVID-19 Pandemic

As four female undergraduate students aspiring to go into health-related fields, we found your article Caregiving in a Pandemic: Health-Related Socioeconomic Vulnerabilities Among Women Caregivers Early in the COVID-19 Pandemic to be very interesting and important to analyze. In your article, several important points were brought up including what being a caregiver for a loved one entails, how caregiving has evolved over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, and how socioeconomic factors could be involved in these outcomes. We would like to describe two main points of discussion that came to mind after reading the article: the potential differences in how people define being a caregiver and how health-related socioeconomic vulnerabilities (HRSVs) of caregiving as a female might compare to those of male caregivers. Then, we would also like to address some possible extensions of this study, especially looking into the question of if and how these caregivers are able to obtain support for their own health, both physical and mental, during these difficult times.

It was noted in the article that both females who were giving care for a sick or dependent individual and females who were not caregivers were at an increased risk for HRSVs. To distinguish between caregivers and non-caregivers in this study, a cross-sectional survey was administered to 3,200 English speakers who were aged 18 or older, asking them if they identified as a caregiver. However, an important question that we identified is the following: How did survey participants define caregiving? Specifically, are there differences in how individual caregivers and non-caregivers define caregiving? Furthermore, could there be cultural differences in these potential varying definitions and or interpretations? For instance, we know that some cultures have a familial obligation towards their care recipients, and they may not define such an obligation as stressful and may not even label it as caregiving since they are fulfilling a family duty. On the other hand, some cultures are not expected to care for family members in poor health and so they may be more likely to find more stress in such a position and to label it as caregiving. Therefore, we need a deeper discussion on addressing the definition of caregiving especially when exploring different strata based on culture, race, religion, ethnicity, etc.

While this paper went into great depth analyzing female caregivers, another aspect that we think should be researched is the role of males as caregivers as well. It would be valuable to see whether there is a gender difference when looking at HRSVs related to the role of a caregiver. There could be pressure for certain genders to fall into a caregiving role, so we think it is important to look at this for both males and females and to see if these pressures affect HRSVs involved with caregiving. Although it is not possible to return to pre-COVID-19 pandemic times, it would be interesting to compare men and women as caregivers at the present time.
Given the transition to more “normal” times as society eases back to a world like what we had pre-COVID-19, it would be particularly interesting to also examine what caregiving looks like post-COVID-19. Trends across time could then be compared to both pre-COVID-19 and during COVID-19 time periods analyzed in this article. Another necessary thing to address after seeing the conclusions of this paper is the kind of support that exists for caregivers. What are some resources that caregivers could be provided to cope with HRSVs? It is likely that the amount of stress that caregivers have correlates with overall health outcomes of their recipients as well. This also could be further studied to determine if there is an association.