Health and vulnerability revisited: an integrated view in light of the Covid-19 pandemic

This paper aims to provide an account of health and vulnerability which highlights their interdependence. Such recognition is instrumental to better promote health and to support the vulnerable. Furthermore, it helps overcome untenable individualistic approaches to health and adopt a more dynamic understanding of vulnerability. Applying this view to the current pandemic, the paper argues the following theses: strategies for health promotion and support of the vulnerable cannot merely include individual-based interventions; the fulfillment of such strategies requires individual and collective responsibility for health; promoting health requires recognizing vulnerability and in some cases dealing with new sources of vulnerability paradoxically created by public health measures adopted to counter the pandemic.