Case study 5: Keeping gender in focus – COVID-19 response and recovery
From the start of the pandemic, we've been providing ongoing analysis and advice to make sure the pandemic response and recovery don't make women's health and equality issues even worse.
Key impacts
We provide evidence on the impact of the pandemic and related policy responses on women across the state. This includes research and analysis focusing on local, regional and statewide impacts.
We acted swiftly to address the health needs of some of the state’s most marginalised communities. We developed Victoria’s first coordinated workforce of bilingual and multilingual health educators to avoid migrant and refugee women missing out on crucial health information.
We pivoted our work to respond to changing community, stakeholder and partner needs. This included responding to the need to collect COVID- and gender-relevant data and information to assist health services and other providers.
We advise government on how to avoid the pandemic response and recovery making women's health and equality issues even worse. This includes submissions on the real and potential negative impacts of COVID-19 response and recovery decisions on women’s health and safety. We draw attention to how the pandemic and economic downturn have disproportionately impacted women already marginalised within society.
The result
It remains to be seen how Victorian women will ultimately weather the pandemic and economic downturn. We continue to provide government with up-to-date information about community needs and advice on how to avoid the pandemic reversing progress on women’s health and gender equality.
What this looks like – examples of our work
Workforce of Multilingual Health Educators project
Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health coordinates the ‘Workforce of multilingual health educators’ (WOMHEn) project (now in its third phase). Established in 2021, the project mobilised to train and upskill Victoria’s first coordinated workforce of bilingual and multilingual health educators. Employing 50 health educators speaking 22 languages, educators provide in-language health information to support migrant and refugee women to make informed decisions and their and their children’s healthcare. During the height of the pandemic, this led to an increase in COVID screening and vaccination uptake in some of the state’s hardest to reach communities.
COVID- and gender- relevant data
Across the state, our sector has produced timely data and reports to help inform COVID-19 response and recovery. This includes:
Impacts of COVID-19 on women’s mental health and recommendations for action (WHV and Women’s Mental Health Alliance, 2020)
Learning from the hard lockdown: Preserving community health, wellbeing and dignity during a public health crisis (GenWest, MCWH and Gender Equity Victoria 2020)
Identifying the impact of COVID-19 on regional Victorian women’s health and wellbeing (WHLM 2021)
Parenting in a pandemic (WHE 2021)
Left behind: Migrant and refugee women’s experience of COVID-19 (Women’s health sector and Gender Equity Victoria 2021)
Women’s Voice – The experiences of Aboriginal women during COVID-19 (WHWBSW 2022)