When people who test positive to COVID-19 become subject to ridicule for their activities, it could make others feel reluctant to get tested, or reveal their movements to contact tracers.
Mental health stigma does not only exist at the level of individuals, but also at a structural level that affects care within our health system.
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Structural stigma is in the rules, policies and procedures of organizations and society. It's reflected in systems that treat people with mental illness as less treatable or less deserving of care.
At critical developmental periods when young children are learning about themselves, others and the world, they are frequently seeing pain portrayed unrealistically in kids’ TV shows and movies.
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In children’s media, pain is depicted alarmingly frequently, usually unrealistically and often violently, but without empathy or help. These images of pain send all the wrong messages.
The migrant label sticks.
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Ghettos of crime, drugs and vice? Full of people bludging off the state? That's typical of the unfair stigma attached to public housing, and it distracts us from more fundamental issues.
Cultural narratives, ableism and ageism dehumanize people with dementia, and present their lives as disposable.
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The stigma that dehumanizes people living with dementia is reflected in the toll of COVID-19 in long-term care. Reforming long-term care must challenge this stigma with a new ethic of care.
A leading sociologist explains how different dimensions of humanity produce different kinds of inequality - and what that does to the least equal in society.
Migrant workers leaving New Delhi to go back to their villages amid the coronavirus lockdown.
AP Photo/Manish Swarup
Dalits have long been ostracized as the 'untouchables' in Indian society. Discrimination and the impact of the coronavirus have only reinforced their status.
Experts recommend adopted children be told about their origins, no matter how difficult the circumstances, but doing so is tricky for adoptive parents.
We’d all love to know more about our neighbours – from COVID-19 data, census data and other official data sources – but we shouldn't.
HIV activists in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, South Africa in 2004. Solidarity and organisation were key in fighting HIV stigma.
Gideon Mendel/Corbis via Getty Images
People seeking mental health care still encounter stigma, even within the health system. New tools for teaching and sharing information may help address it.
Many employees with mental illnesses don’t get the help they need for fear of discrimination.
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Hilton Humphries, Centre for the AIDS Program of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA)
Communities continue to be vital in efforts to bring the pandemic under control. They are the custodians of rich knowledge that creates the context in which HIV transmission occurs.