Assessing Health Inequities: - Understanding the Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Toronto’s

9 BACKGROUND THE COVID PANDEMIC AND INEQUITIES IN ONTARIO AND THE GTA The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the mental health and well-being of the population in Ontario.11,12 In addition to the stress of social isolation due to two years of public health physical distancing measures,13 people have struggled with changed circumstances, such as navigating remote or in-person essenti. [...] These inequities are the result of the unequal distribution of the social determinants of health, information, and resources, and the lowered capacity of some groups to access protective strategies and treatments.16 Research in Canada has found that racialized and low-income populations experience higher rates of COVID-19 infection17 and mortality.18 Early in the pandemic, neighborhoods with highe. [...] The only difference is that the refugee [claimant] has protection at the federal level, but the walk-in clinics don’t want to go through the trouble of seeing the patient and then sending the receipt to charge that appointment to the federal government. [...] The mother’s initial fear and lack of knowledge about the healthcare system presented a significant obstacle to accessing care: “[The mother] waited 10 days to come to the hospital, the child was very sick...[she] was very afraid to come [to the hospital] and it took me a lot of work to send her to the emergency room because she just wanted [to know what the child had]... [...] Additionally, the recruitment process, which relied on networks, may have resulted in the exclusion of individuals who are more socially isolated within the Latin American communities, leading to potential gaps in the findings and limiting the generalizability of the results to the broader population.