Jennifer Spence & Sai Sneha Venkata Krishnan
The Arctic region faces unique risks and challenges as a result of both the COVID-19 pandemic and the actions taken to respond to it. Arctic communities have distinct health, social and economic needs and circumstances that were more pronounced during this pandemic. Research offers an important opportunity to understand the region’s unique conditions and characteristics for pandemic management. Only by systematically examining its impacts can public officials, community leaders, medical professionals and other decision-makers have the knowledge needed to decrease further harm due to COVID-19 and leverage this opportunity to support the resilience of Arctic communities. This article contributes to this knowledge building effort by surveying the literature (peer reviewed and grey) that explicitly focuses on COVID-19 in the Arctic between 2020 and 2022. We analyze this emerging body of work with a focus on identifying overarching trends (time, countries studied, scale of analysis, specific populations). We also map the themes and topics considered in this literature with a focus on highlighting topics that are prominent and those that are conspicuously underrepresented. This analysis seeks to inform our understanding of, and response to, the pandemic and other global shocks in the short-, medium- and longer-term.
