myAIPMAre women leaders significantly better at controlling the contagion?
Soumik Purkayastha, Maxwell Salvatore, Bhramar Mukherjee, University of Michigan
Abstract:
Recent media articles have suggested that women-led countries are doing better in terms of their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. We examine an ensemble of public health metrics 10 to assess the control of COVID-19 epidemic in women- versus men-led countries worldwide based on data available up to June 3. The median of the distribution of median time-varying effective reproduction number for women- and men-led countries were 0.89 and 1.14 respectively with the 95% two-sample bootstrap-based confidence interval for the difference (women - men) being [- 0.34, 0.02]. In terms of scale of testing, the median percentage of population tested were 3.28% 15 (women), 1.59% (men) [95% CI: (-1.29%, 3.60%)] with test positive rates of 2.69% (women) and 4.94% (men) respectively. It appears that though statistically not significant, countries led by women have an edge over countries led by men in terms of public health metrics for controlling the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. 20 One Sentence Summary: We quantitatively compare countries led by women with countries led by men in terms of public health metrics for controlling the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Introduction:
The remarkable success of the chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel, the prime minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of Finland Sanna Marin and the 25 Icelandic prime minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic has received much attention (1). There has been a wave of articles in the media that applaud the COVID-19 response efforts in women-led countries (2) along with the promotion of progressive policies which would reduce severe COVID-19 outcomes (3). In this note, we attempt to quantify the effect of women leaders more broadly across the world in terms of public health and policy relevant 30 measures that have been widely discussed in the last three months for controlling a pandemic. Instead of qualitative comparisons and statements, we assess statistical significance of the hypotheses that performance is indeed different between women and men heads of nations.
Read more
Are women leaders significantly better at controlling the contagion? Soumik Purkayastha, Maxwell Salvatore, Bhramar Mukherjee, University of Michigan, 2020
Sign up for our weekly newsletter - helping to keep you abreast of research and findings within the policing and public safety community in Australia and around the world.