Social Cohesion and Covid-19: an integrative review (Preprint)

Abstract

Nations of considerable wealth and sophisticated healthcare infrastructures have seen high rates of illness and death from Covid-19. Others with limited economic means and less developed healthcare infrastructures have achieved much lower burdens. In order to build a full understanding, an appraisal of the contribution of social relationships is necessary. Social cohesion represents a promising conceptual tool.

The aim was to examine scholarship on social cohesion during the Covid-19 pandemic: specifically – the constructions of social cohesion deployed, how it was measured, and the effects of and on social cohesion reported.

The Pubmed, Scopus and JSTOR databases were searched for relevant journal articles and grey literature. 66 studies met the inclusion criteria. Data were extracted and analysed from these using spreadsheet software.

Several constructions of social cohesion were found. These concerned interpersonal relationships; sameness and difference; collective action; perceptions/emotions of group members; structures and institutions of governance; local or cultural specificity; and hybrid/multidimensional models. Social cohesion was reported as influential on health outcomes, health behaviours, and resilience and emotional wellbeing; but also that there was some potential for it to drive undesirable outcomes. Scholarship reported increases or decreases in quantitative measures of social cohesion, a temporary ‘rally round the flag’ effect early in the pandemic, the variable impacts of policy on cohesion, and changing interpersonal relationships due to pandemic conditions. There are numerous issues with the literature that reflect the well-documented limitations of popular versions of the social cohesion concept.

Social cohesion has been used to express a range of different aspects of relationships during the pandemic. It is said to promote better health outcomes, more engagement with positive health behaviours, and greater resilience and emotional wellbeing. The literature presents a range of ways in which it has been altered by the pandemic conditions.

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