This study examines how households experiencing multidimensional poverty in five suburban districts of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, coped with the socioeconomic and health disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyzed eight coping strategies across financial, employment, and healthcare domains using multivariate and ordered probit models. Our analysis used data from 400 households and employed a mixed-methods approach. The results showed that coping was strongly portfolio-based, and households combined three to four strategies. The core consisted of low-cost preventive health and information strategies, while financial strategies were used selectively due to debt and eligibility concerns. Adoption and intensity of coping were significantly associated with household structure, access to employment and health support, and subjective satisfaction. The findings highlight major resilience gaps and emphasize the need for policies combining preventive health systems, income stabilization, skill development, and targeted financial assistance. This study contributes to disaster resilience research by demonstrating how the coping strategies of poor urban residents reflect the interplay of absorptive, adaptive, and transformative capacities in response to a public health crisis.
Hien et al. (Mon,) studied this question.