COVID-19 shows why society is desperate for a social vaccine

COVID-19 has revealed deep social fault lines within countries -- with the poor, those dealing with casual employment, high levels of debt, poorer access to health and social services, and social marginalisation also most devastated by the impact of the pandemic.

In the US, African Americans are dying at a greater rate than white people while in many rich countries like Australia, governments have provided income support for people who have lost or are at risk of losing their jobs, but in low and middle income countries, such support isn’t available.

Professor Fran Baum, director of the Southgate Institute for Health, Society and Equity at Flinders University, said recovery from the pandemic provides an opportunity to address the inequitable distribution of power, money and resources with transformative goals which require a social vaccine.

"A social vaccine is a metaphor designed to shift the dominant biomedical orientation of the health sector towards the underlying distal factors that cause disease and suffering," Prof. Baum said. "Such a vaccine would be applied to populations rather than individuals. It will also have to be applied in multiple sectors that affect health, including education, employment, welfare and housing.

“It comprises government and other institutional policies that aim to keep people well and mitigate the structural drivers of inequities in daily living conditions, which make people and communities vulnerable to disease and trauma.”

In an article published in the Medical Journal of Australia today, Prof. Baum explained the target of the social vaccine would be the conditions that underpin four basic requirements for global health and equity to flourish:

• a life with security;
• opportunities that are fair;
• a planet that is habitable and supports biodiversity; and
• governance that is just.

Prof. Baum said biological vaccines require an efficient supply chain to ensure their delivery and effectiveness so in a similar way, the delivery of public policies at the heart of a social vaccine require considerable civil society advocacy to ensure their development and effective implementation.

“With or without a vaccine, the COVID-19 pandemic will come to an end at some point, but the inequities highlighted by it will remain unless a social vaccine is developed and applied," Prof. Baum said.

“A global social vaccine will enable a new way of living that is healthy, just, convivial and sustainable, and will inoculate future society against a return to a world growing increasingly less healthy, sustainable and equal.”

www.flinders.edu.au

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