Social Stigma as a Barrier to Covid-19 Responses to Community Well-Being in Bangladesh

Abstract

This commentary looks at the social stigma as a barrier to Covid-19 responses to community well-being in Bangladesh. The Covid-19 in Bangladesh particular the way the people respond this has many dimensions to view from sociological perspective. The main objective of this commentary is to analysis how this response is related to social stigma. Gathering information from the recent literature, results showed that there are number of causes around such stigma that include misinformation, feeling of insecurity, fear of responsibility, administrative malfunction, and lack of trust on treatment. These causes of stigma have number of forms such as humor-prone stigma, residential stigma, organizational stigma, community-stigma, and apathetical stigma. Results also show that there are many effects of stigma such as health-risks, harassment, discrimination, life-insecurity, psychological disorder, loss of social capital and emotional capital, shattering family bond and social solidarity that work as barrier to community well-being. This commentary recommends to overcome the barriers through strengthening and decentralization of the COVID-19 medical facilities including testing, tracing, formal quarantining, and special treatment for coronavirus in coronavirus hospitals by allocating a large figure of the state budget and also by taking initiatives of public-private partnership for health management.