Dr. Hyunseok Hwang, ISTPP Assistant Research Scientist, and Dr. Young-joo Lee at the University of Central Florida have published their research article “Loaded Dice: Pandemics and Economic Inequalities” in International Journal of Policy Studies.
In this article, Dr. Hwang and his coauthor empirically examine how the impacts of pandemics are intertwined with economic inequality using the case of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. They find that the number of hospitalizations per 1,000 people is positively associated with the degree of income inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient at the US county level. Their findings suggest that epidemics and pandemics pose a greater threat to communities with a greater degree of income inequality. Dr. Hwang and Dr. Lee point out some policy implications of their research. They emphasize that managing the response to the COVID-19 pandemic should be accompanied by a corresponding effort to reduce existing economic inequality and poverty.
Lee, Young-joo, and Hwang, Hyunseok. 2020. “Loaded Dice: Pandemics and Economic Inequalities.” International Journal of Policy Studies 11(2): 201-218.
