The Țigani Community Adaptability to Changes in Rural Romania and the COVID-19 Impact

Abstract

Romanian rural villages are struggling to survive present times when youngsters leave for a better life in the city while elders work the land like a hundred years ago. Our paper integrates human environments research with public health preparedness, presenting the Țigani (Gypsy/Roma) ethnic group from rural Romania as an example to the world. The future security of mankind will require a new understanding of the human place in its environment. That will lead to a new society, not the most powerful or intelligent, but the one that is more adaptable to changes, with sensitive and interconnected community members. Therefore, the Țigani ethnic group that fought for its rights and flourished despite unfavorable odds, including the recent COVID-19 pandemic, represents the best example for a new world that prioritizes humans, promotes health and wellbeing, facilitating innovation and transformative networks environmental integration. This research attempts to quantify the Țigani′s unique attributes that helped their communities survive and made them more adaptive to change. Always marginalized, they identified the other ethnic groups’ weaknesses to penetrate the villages and learned to use the smartphone apps to communicate, for their trades, coppersmith, metal roof tiles and drainage systems. Our research was based on Geographical Information System, Microsoft Power Bi analytics data visualization tools and statistical analysis with SPSS V20 to demonstrate what enables their flourishing and what resistance they face locally. We argue that the Țigani′s intense social cooperation, strong sense of family, community and mutual assistance helped them to fight COVID-19, generating their significant adaptability to the societal changes and their power to keep intact their cultural identity. The results show how the constant growing Țigani population changed and may change Romania′s rural environments in the future.

Roma Community and Health Inequalities during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Romania

“…This discrimination, we found, is often linked to the characterisation of the Roma as traditional and culturally conservative. This narrative has been found in different literatures (Tesfay 2009;Voda et al 2021;Woodcock 2007). However, in our study we have found that this is not the case, and that, in fact, we cannot talk about health experiences in Roma communities without considering a multi-dimensional approach that understands that the latter are in fact heterogeneous (Orton et al 2019).…”

Associations between Gut Microbiota Dysbiosis and Other Risk Factors in Women with a History of Urinary Tract Infections

“…Due to the importance of maintaining a healthy gut and a balanced microbiome, the therapeutic approach of UTI could be oriented, at least concurrently with the antibiogram, towards microbiome testing and management. Both patients and general practitioners must understand the need to reconsider the management of UTI recurrences, to adapt [ 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 ] to new long-term therapeutic perspectives and the inclusion of an integrative approach to this problem through interventions aimed at supporting the microbiome, both for otherwise healthy individuals and for vulnerable ones, in which antibiotic treatment also involves other potential risks, such as the case of women during pregnancy [ 53 ]. Microbiota homeostasis and the treatment of obesity and related comorbidities may benefit from gut microbiome manipulation through dietary modifications, lifestyle adjustments, prebiotics, and probiotics [ 54 ].…”

COVID-19 preparedness and response in rural and remote areas: A scoping review

“…This was also demonstrated in the Tigani community in rural Romania where intense social cooperation, strong sense of family, community and mutual assistance helped them to fight COVID-19. It also strengthened adaptability to the societal changes and their power to keep intact their cultural identity [206]. Grassroots organizations in the Andes instituted a range of hybrid reciprocity practices as essential for provisioning during COVID-19.…”