Welcome to the GaP RISK research project
The COVID-19 pandemic poses various societal challenges. We examine how the pandemic affects distinct social and at-risk groups in Germany, what it implies for societal inequalities, and what role welfare state measures play.
First, we will describe the situation of the population before and during the pandemic in the health and the socio-economic domain. In each domain, we will study a set of core outcomes (e.g., physical and psychological health in the first, household income and frequency of social contacts in the second domain). Thereby, we will describe, for the overall population and at-risk groups, levels of and inequalities in outcomes.
Second, we will examine the implications of COVID-19-related
policies in the health and socio-economic domain to identify advantageous
policies and to recommend complementary ones that mitigate unintended
side-effects. To achieve these aims, our interdisciplinary team will
apply descriptive and causal statistical techniques as well as small
area estimation methods, accounting for regional variation in policies
and infection rates. We will use a unique integrated dataset, comprising:
(a) the German
Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP);
(b) SOEP-CoV, providing detailed
information on the pandemic-related
situation of about 10,000 SOEP respondents in the 2nd quarter of 2020;
(c) RKI-SOEP blood and saliva tests from approx. 20,000 SOEP respondents
(collection started in Sept. 2020 in collaboration with RKI).
Participating institutions
The research project brings together scientists from the fields of epidemiology, public health, sociology and psychology to explore the different aspects of health inequalities for at-risk groups during the Covid-19 pandemic:
