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Despite the UK being one of the vital developed international locations on the planet, there are nonetheless 1000’s of individuals in Britain who are usually not capable of afford or entry interval merchandise or menstrual well being companies – what’s generally known as “interval poverty”. The pandemic has solely made this worse.
When the UK entered its first lockdown in March 2020, all “non-essential” workplaces have been closed. This included many locations that had been offering free interval merchandise, schooling and healthcare for these experiencing interval poverty, together with faculties.
Shortly afterwards, youngsters’s charity Plan International UK launched a report exhibiting the affect that this was having. It highlighted how the closure of help companies and stockpiling was making it tougher for individuals to seek out tampons, pads and different interval merchandise that have been reasonably priced.
Our crew then performed analysis to see how issues developed from this level. Over 18 months (July 2020 to December 2021), we collected knowledge from 34 UK companies offering interval merchandise, menstrual well being schooling or menstrual well being help to learn the way they tailored. We additionally surveyed 240 individuals throughout the UK who had skilled interval poverty in the course of the pandemic to learn the way that they had been affected. Here’s what we discovered.
Where did all of the interval merchandise go?
Access to interval merchandise did certainly change into extra of an issue throughout lockdown, with our findings echoing what had beforehand been reported by Plan International UK and the media. Of the individuals we surveyed, 85% had skilled difficulties accessing merchandise throughout lockdown. This lack of merchandise was on the coronary heart of most individuals’s experiences of interval poverty.
But this wasn’t simply because they couldn’t afford them. The individuals we spoke to additionally couldn’t discover merchandise within the locations they often received them from. Places that had offered free merchandise, like faculties, have been closed, and outlets and supermarkets have been working out of reasonably priced choices.
Along with sure foodstuffs and bathroom paper, interval merchandise have been additionally stockpiled early on within the pandemic.
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Period poverty companies additionally advised us of how “new teams” needing assist getting merchandise had appeared due to the pandemic. NHS employees have been contacting companies for merchandise as their workplaces didn’t present them throughout lengthy shifts. People who had misplaced their jobs or been furloughed now wanted help as a result of they couldn’t afford merchandise. And interval merchandise have been usually lacking in packages offered by meals banks or for clinically extraordinarily weak those who couldn’t depart their homes throughout lockdown.
To meet this enhance in demand, new methods of offering merchandise appeared. Period poverty companies created “take what you want” bins, which supplied merchandise at no cost in public locations. They additionally began doorstep deliveries or posting merchandise to individuals’s house addresses, whereas social media and group teams communicated the place individuals might get merchandise from.
Support companies discovered that connecting with and supporting new teams and communities was truly an enormous advantage of lockdown, and most of the options they got here up with in the course of the restrictions have been saved up after they lifted. Services supporting faculties advised us {that a} explicit constructive was the chance to advertise reusable interval merchandise, with requests for these rising throughout lockdown.
But it’s not nearly merchandise
Services additionally advised us that loads of individuals contacted them for menstrual well being recommendation throughout lockdown, within the absence of simply accessible healthcare. We have been advised how accessing GP appointments had change into troublesome and that individuals felt they shouldn’t “hassle” their medical doctors about their menstrual well being, because it wasn’t as essential as COVID.
Of the individuals we spoke to who had skilled interval poverty throughout lockdown, 75% said that they had wanted help or recommendation about their menstrual cycle whereas restrictions have been in place. Yet solely 20% truly sought help from a medical skilled. Some didn’t have entry to secure and personal areas to have the ability to attend on-line or phone appointments with their GP however have been supplied no different type of session.
This highlights that in the course of the pandemic, as in instances beforehand, interval poverty has been about extra than simply interval merchandise themselves. Rather, it’s a drawback of unequal entry to all elements of period-related help.
Should there be additional lockdowns on this or a future pandemic, our analysis means that the necessity for help to take care of interval poverty is prone to enhance. This want will likely be there as long as there isn’t a central technique and coverage to handle interval poverty throughout the UK.
Having a strong, constant method to tackling all components of interval poverty is the easiest way to ensure individuals’s wants are met. It’s what the UK needs to be aiming for – pandemic or no pandemic.
Gemma Williams acquired funding for the Periods in a Pandemic analysis undertaking from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), a part of UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) speedy response to COVID.
