Anales del Congreso ALAP
Anales del X Congreso ALAP

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic is responsible for economic, social, and health changes in women's lives around the globe. The objective of the study is to explore how Brazilian women were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and, in doing so, to better expand the understanding of how public health crises contribute to social inequality. We used data from the online survey, “Women's Health in the Age of Zika and Coronavirus (Covid-19)”, which consisted of a convenience sample of 1,861 women aged 18 to 45 years across Brazil. Women
reported high levels of increased care for dependents, reduced incomes, violence in the household, and barriers to health care in the four weeks prior to the survey. Additionally, these challenges were more common among women who had less education, had less income, or were non-white relative to women who had more education, had more income, or were white, respectively. Less-educated, low-income, and non-white women also tended to agree with the necessity of avoiding pregnancy during Covid-19. Yet, their access to contraceptives may have been jeopardized by lockdowns, limited income, and overcrowded health services, thereby increasing their risk of unplanned pregnancy during a global public health crisis.