Session 7. The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the social construction of health and illness for and by persons with disabilities: call for a sociological reflexivity towards a public sociology

Covid-19 pandemic has affected the social construction of health and illness concepts. We call for a sociological reflection on the situation of persons with disabilities that have faced new barriers in managing and accessing spaces to avoid contagions. How has the Covid-19 pandemic affected the dominant model of disabilities? Has the Covid pandemic and the related recovery policy fostered or slowed down reforms in welfare disability policies towards the UN Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities?

The disability social construction has been mirrored and at the same time fostered in the last decades' welfare reform process in each country in a path dependency perspective. Significant, non - incremental change is unlikely. Nevertheless, Covid-19 hasrepresented an exogenous shock, radically affecting the social construction of health and illness and the related welfare policy, services and practices, fostering the debates on institutionalization and de-institutionalization, familiarization and de-familiarization processes. This outlines a new space for sociological reflexivity on the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on barriers, boundaries as well as spaces and practices of care for persons with disabilities.

The session aims to discuss the impact of Covid-19, on the social construction of health and illness for and by persons with disabilities at macro level focusing on international and national policy regulative framework; at meso level considering sub-national institutional level focusing on regional or local policy, services or practices; at micro level considering the impact of Covid-19 on individual, families and disability welfare policy professions.

Maria Światkiewicz-Mośny is a Professor of Sociology at the Institute of Sociology, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland. Her research interests include health literacy, disability, and vaccine hesitation.

Angela Genova is a Researcher in the Department of Economics, Society, Politics at the University of Urbino, Italy. Her research interests include health inequalities, disability and social policy.