Surviving Together: Social Cohesion and Covid-19 Infections and Mortality Across the World Database

This item contains the data for Pacheco-Miranda et al (2022). Surviving Together: Social Cohesion and Covid-19 Infections and Mortality Across the World. Critical Public Health. Details on the data used in the paper can be found in the Metadata file. 
Studies of the determinants of the spread and mortality of COVID-19 indicate that the quality of health care systems and government type and capacity have a negligent role in explaining the variation of infection and death rates between countries. Research therefore suggests a role for societal factors, in particular social capital. But its measures vary widely, sometimes including indicators that refer to politics or governance. We clearly distinguish social cohesion from social capital and argue that the first better captures the societal influence on the pandemic, by its concern with the common good and relationships between (rather than within) social groups. We analyze the role of social cohesion in the spread and mortality of COVID-19 in a large cross-country analysis with a comprehensive index and two sub-indices of social cohesion. Moreover, the underlying indicators enable us to study the pathways through which social cohesion is likely to affect COVID-19 outcomes. Contrary to the recent empirical literature we find robust relationships, in particular for intergroup cohesion. Our findings suggest that more cohesive societies, in particular those with less divisiveness between social groups, may be better equipped to reduce the impact of a pandemic.

本项包含 Pacheco-Miranda 等人（2022年）所著《共克时艰：全球范围内社会凝聚力与新冠感染及死亡率》一文中所使用的数据。关于论文中所用数据的详细信息，请参阅元数据文件。对 COVID-19 传播和死亡率决定因素的研究表明，卫生保健体系的品质以及政府类型和能力的差异在解释各国感染和死亡率之间的变化方面发挥着微不足道的作用。因此，研究指出社会因素，尤其是社会资本，可能发挥着重要作用。但社会资本的衡量标准差异极大，有时甚至包括与政治或治理相关的指标。我们明确区分了社会凝聚力与社会资本，并认为前者更能全面反映社会对疫情的影响，因为它关注的是公共利益以及社会群体之间的而非群体内部的关系。我们利用一个综合指标和两个社会凝聚力的子指标，在跨国家的大型分析中研究了社会凝聚力在 COVID-19 传播和死亡率中的作用。与近期实证文献相反，我们发现社会凝聚力与 COVID-19 结果之间存在稳健的关系，尤其是在群体间凝聚力方面。我们的研究结果表明，社会凝聚力较强的社会，尤其是社会群体间分化程度较低的社会，可能更有能力减轻疫情的影响。