Roma Women's Role in the Health Preservation of Their Communities during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The scientific literature has evidenced the stereotypes that affect the Roma people, which are detrimental to their access to the health systems in various countries. With the COVID-19 pandemic, this situation has been aggravated by falsely blaming, on many occasions, the Roma people as spreaders of the virus for supposedly not complying with the norms established by the health authorities. However, it has not been explored in depth what actions have been carried out by the Roma people during the pandemic to cope with this aspect. The aim of this article is to learn about the leadership of Roma women in relation to maintaining the health of their community during the pandemic. The research has been conducted through focus groups and life stories with a total of 47 Roma women and 24 Roma men participants, as well as interviews with 40 professionals from education, social services, health services, and civic organizations. The results show how the reality of the studied contexts was different to those stereotypes, that the Roma women in the contexts studied have led actions that preserved the health of their communities, that the established measures were strictly followed, breaking with the extended stereotype about the Roma people.