Yingjia Huang

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only deepened existing social inequalities but also highlighted the urgency of rethinking how vulnerability and communication inequality are conceptualized in public health contexts. This scoping review synthesizes current research on these topics, focusing specifically on China, Japan, and South Korea. Two guiding questions frame the study: (1) How are “vulnerable groups” defined and understood in East Asian contexts during the pandemic? (2) How do communication inequalities in these contexts compare with those in Western societies, and what are their implications for health behaviors? The first section of the review maps how East Asian studies commonly categorize vulnerable groups—such as older adults, children, and low-income populations—based on demographic, institutional, and cultural factors. It also highlights the concept of situational vulnerability, where individuals may become temporarily marginalized due to access barriers to health technologies, such as digital health codes or mobility restrictions. The second section analyzes how communication inequality operates through differential access, visibility, and trust. In East Asia, health communication often relies on centralized channels and standardized formats, which can streamline messaging but risk excluding people without digital literacy or formal status, such as migrant workers. Rather than framing East–West differences hierarchically, the review emphasizes how local media systems, governance structures, and levels of public trust shape inclusive communication. Communication inequality, therefore, is not only about message access but also about who is recognized as a legitimate audience in the first place. Theoretically grounded in Provincializing STS perspectives (Law & Lin, 2017), this study challenges the implicit universalism of Western-centric models. Instead, it calls for a more pluralistic and inclusive vision of science communication—one that acknowledges the locality, diversity, and complexity of knowledge-making across global contexts.