COVID-19 in Brooklyn: Everyday Life During a Pandemic looks closely at the ways that the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the lives of ordinary people living in the super-gentrified Brooklyn neighborhoods of Park Slope and Greenpoint/Williamsburg, where the authors hunkered down during the 2020 lockdown. Putting their private lives into broader scientific and public contexts, Krase and DeSena discuss a wide range of research methods and theories, as well as print and internet media sources about the pandemic. With words and images, the scholar-activist authors place their own personal experiences and those of their family and neighbors inside the broader context of global and national medical emergencies, as well as related economic, social, and political unrest, such as widespread unemployment, the Black Lives Matter Movement, and the contentious 2020 presidential election. Using a distributive social justice perspective and examining their own privileges, they discover and discuss the racial and economic inequities that affected the lives of other Brooklynites. These disparities included public health measures and lack of access to basic necessities of urban living. The book also addresses the cultural and economic shifts that took place at the start of the pandemic and contemplate how those forces will impact on future urban life, asking what the "new normal" of business, entertainment, education, housing, and work will look like locally and globally. This richly illustrated book offers an invaluable local study of the impact of the pandemic on ordinary people in Brooklyn. As such, it will be of great interest to students and researchers in the humanities and social sciences.

The novel coronavirus and the resultant COVID-19 pandemic have disproportionately affected older adults in terms of the number of lives lost, concerns about safety of institutional and home and community-based care, the impact of isolation and seclusion, and the ability to participate and engage in meaningful and contributory activities. The pandemic has uncovered layers of ageism that are embedded in societies globally and challenges us all to address the pervasive individual, institutional, and structural biases that permit age-based discrimination. Within the interdisciplinary field of gerontology, social workers lead organizations, provide direct services and supports, facilitate community engagement and participation, and deliver therapeutic interventions among other roles and activities that facilitate positive outcomes for older adults and their families. In Gerontological Social Work and COVID-19: Calls for Change in Education, Practice, and Policy from International Voices, scholars, practice professionals, and other stakeholders reflect on the initial months of the pandemic. They articulate immediate needs the pandemic has created and uncovered, and further identify directions the field must go in to meet the moment and prepare for the future ahead. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Gerontological Social Work.

Focused on the United States, this book summarizes the secondary impacts of COVID-19 due to the increased use of technology. Establishing the global response of social distancing, mandates for non-essential business, and working from home, the book centers on the disparate guidance provided domestically at the state and local levels. Marginalized populations are highlighted to identify areas where technology facilitated access and reach or contributed to difficulties catapulted by digital literacy or digital access issues. To explain how people may have been empowered or left behind due to a new and unique reliance on technology, this book is structured based on the social determinants of health domains. Specifically, this book explains how technology was an umbrella domain that impacted every aspect of life during the pandemic including access, use, adoption, digital literacy, and digital equity, as well as privacy and security concerns. Given this book’s focus on the impacts to marginalized populations, there is a thread throughout the book related to the use of technology to perpetuate hate, discrimination, racism, and xenophobic behaviors that emerged as a twin pandemic during COVID-19. Part I explains the defining differences between primary and secondary impacts, as well as the unique guidelines adopted in each state. Part II of the book is focused on specific domains, where each chapter is dedicated to topics including economic stability through employment, education, healthcare, and the social/community context through access to services. Part III focuses on unique technological considerations related to COVID-19, such as mobile health-related apps and privacy or security issues that may have posed barriers to the adoption and use of technology. Finally, the book ends with a conclusion chapter, which explicitly explains the advantages and disadvantages of technology adoption during COVID-19. These exposed benefits and challenges will have implications for policies, disaster management practices, and interdisciplinary research.