scholarly journals Understanding the Effects of Individual and State-Level Factors on American Public Response to COVID-19

2021 ◽  
pp. 089011712110172
Author(s):  
Feng Hao ◽  
Wanyun Shao
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
State Level ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Policy Support ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Outcome Variable ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Public Response ◽  
The Public

Purpose: To examine multilevel predictors on American public response to COVID-19. Design: Multilevel study. Setting: A national survey was conducted by Qualtrics from August 24 to September 11, 2020. The state-level variables were constructed on data from multiple sources. Subjects: 2,440 respondents 18 years and older from all 50 states and D.C. Measures: The outcome variable is the public response to COVID-19 measured by threat perception, behavioral adjustment, and policy support. The predictors include individual-level sociodemographic factors and state-level indicators about public health conditions, political context, and economic recovery. Analysis: Multilevel structural equation modeling is used for statistical estimation. Results: People from states with more COVID-19 cases (β = 0.020, p < 0.1), mandatory face mask policies (β = 0.069, p < 0.05), and liberal governments (β = 0.002, p < 0.05) are more likely to respond while people from states whose economies have recovered closer to the pre-pandemic level are less likely to do so (β = −0.005, p < 0.05). Regarding individual-level predictors, older people (β = 0.005, p < 0.001) and people with better education (β = 0.029, p < 0.01), leaning toward the Democrat Party (β = 0.066, p < 0.001) and liberal political ideology (β = 0.094, p < 0.001), and have stronger generalized trust (β = 0.033, p < 0.001) are more likely to respond than their counterparts. Conclusion: Differences in the public response to the pandemic stem from variations in individual characteristics and contextual factors of states where people live. These findings contribute to the rapidly growing literature and have implications for public health policies.

The criminal law and public health context of drug policy support among young people in the European Union

2013 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-28
Author(s):  
Mike Vuolo
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Young People ◽  
Drug Policy ◽  
Drug Users ◽  
State Level ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Policy Support ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Eu

This article addresses whether state-level policy differences in the European Union (EU) are associated with young people’s support for policies toward drug users, namely criminalization of drug use and availability of syringe exchanges. While historical institutionalism provides reason to expect such an association, more proximal individual-level influences, as well as the EU supranational agenda encouraging a unified approach to drug policy, may render the state-level unimportant. Using multilevel modeling of a 2002 Eurobarometer cross-national survey of young people, the results show a close alignment of individual-level support and state-level policies of decriminalization and harm reduction, net of individual characteristics. The findings suggest that any EU-level effort to unify countries’ policies concerning drug users will encounter difficulty because attitudes – even among young people – are aligned with and supportive of existing state policies.

scholarly journals A Panel Evaluation of the Changes in the General Public’s Social-Media-Following of United States’ Public Health Departments during COVID-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 215013272199545
Author(s):  
Areej Khokhar ◽  
Aaron Spaulding ◽  
Zuhair Niazi ◽  
Sikander Ailawadhi ◽  
Rami Manochakian ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
State Level ◽  
The State ◽  
Public Health Department ◽  
Health Departments ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Health Departments ◽  
The Social ◽  
The U.S

Importance: Social media is widely used by various segments of society. Its role as a tool of communication by the Public Health Departments in the U.S. remains unknown. Objective: To determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on social media following of the Public Health Departments of the 50 States of the U.S. Design, Setting, and Participants: Data were collected by visiting the Public Health Department web page for each social media platform. State-level demographics were collected from the U.S. Census Bureau. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention was utilized to collect information regarding the Governance of each State’s Public Health Department. Health rankings were collected from “America’s Health Rankings” 2019 Annual report from the United Health Foundation. The U.S. News and World Report Education Rankings were utilized to provide information regarding the public education of each State. Exposure: Data were pulled on 3 separate dates: first on March 5th (baseline and pre-national emergency declaration (NED) for COVID-19), March 18th (week following NED), and March 25th (2 weeks after NED). In addition, a variable identifying the total change across platforms was also created. All data were collected at the State level. Main Outcome: Overall, the social media following of the state Public Health Departments was very low. There was a significant increase in the public interest in following the Public Health Departments during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results: With the declaration of National Emergency, there was a 150% increase in overall public following of the State Public Health Departments in the U.S. The increase was most noted in the Midwest and South regions of the U.S. The overall following in the pandemic “hotspots,” such as New York, California, and Florida, was significantly lower. Interesting correlations were noted between various demographic variables, health, and education ranking of the States and the social media following of their Health Departments. Conclusion and Relevance: Social media following of Public Health Departments across all States of the U.S. was very low. Though, the social media following significantly increased during the early course of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it still remains low. Significant opportunity exists for Public Health Departments to improve social media use to engage the public better.

Social relationships, neighbourhood poverty and cumulative biological risk: findings from a multi-racial US urban community

2019 ◽  
Vol 51 (6) ◽  
pp. 799-816
Author(s):  
Alana M. W. LeBrón ◽  
Amy J. Schulz ◽  
Graciela B. Mentz ◽  
Barbara A. Israel ◽  
Carmen A. Stokes
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Multilevel Models ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Outcome Variable ◽  
Biological Risk ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Neighbourhood Satisfaction ◽  
Neighbourhood Level

AbstractPrior research has established associations between neighbourhood poverty and cumulative biological risk (CBR). CBR is conceptualized as indicative of the effects of stress on biological functioning, and is linked with increased morbidity and mortality. Studies suggest that supportive social relationships may be health protective, and may erode under conditions of poverty. This study examines whether social relationships are inversely associated with CBR and whether associations between neighbourhood poverty and CBR are mediated through social relationships. Data were from a stratified probability sample community survey (n=919) of residents of Detroit, Michigan, USA (2002–2003) and from the 2000 US Census. The outcome variable, CBR, included anthropometric and clinical measures. Independent variables included four indicators of social relationships: social support, neighbourhood satisfaction, social cohesion and neighbourhood participation. Multilevel models were used to test both research questions, with neighbourhood poverty and social relationships included at the block group level, and social relationships also included at the individual level, to disentangle individual from neighbourhood effects. Findings suggest some associations between social relationships and CBR after accounting for neighbourhood poverty and individual characteristics. In models that accounted for all indicators of social relationships, individual-level social support was associated with greater CBR (β=0.12, p=0.04), while neighbourhood-level social support was marginally significantly protective of CBR (within-neighbourhood: β=−0.36, p=0.06; between-neighbourhood: β=−0.24, p=0.06). In contrast, individual-level neighbourhood satisfaction was protective of CBR (β=−0.10, p=0.02), with no within-neighbourhood (β=0.06, p=0.54) or between-neighbourhood association (β=−0.04, p=0.38). Results indicate no significant association between either social cohesion or neighbourhood participation and CBR. Associations between neighbourhood poverty and CBR were not mediated by social relationships. These findings suggest that neighbourhood-level social support and individual-level neighbourhood satisfaction may be health protective and that neighbourhood poverty, social support and neighbourhood satisfaction are associated with CBR through independent pathways.

scholarly journals Analytic Thinking and Political Orientation in the Corona Crisis

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Maglić ◽  
Tomislav Pavlović ◽  
Renata Franc
Keyword(s):  
Political Ideology ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Policy Support ◽  
Dual Process ◽  
Physical Contact ◽  
Mediation Effect ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Preventive Behaviors ◽  
Analytic Thinking ◽  
Cognitive Reflection

With much unknown about the new coronavirus, the scientific consensus is that human hosts are crucial to its spread and reproduction—the more people behave like regular socializing beings they are, the more likely it is that the virus will propagate. Hence, many nations worldwide have mandated physical-distancing measures. In the current preregistered research, we focus on examining two factors that may help explain differences in adherence to COVID-19 preventive behaviors and policy support across different countries—political orientation and analytic thinking. We positioned our research within the dual-process framework of human reasoning and investigated the role of cognitive reflection, open-minded thinking, and political ideology in determining COVID-19 responsible behavior (physical distancing and maintaining hygiene) and support for restrictive COVID-19 policies on a sample of 12,490 participants from 17 countries. We have not been able to detect substantial relationships of political orientation with preventive behaviors and policy support, and overall found no reliable evidence of politicization, nor polarization regarding the issue. The results of structural equation modeling showed that the inclination towards COVID-19 preventive measures and their endorsement were defined primarily by the tendency of open-minded thinking. Specifically, open-minded thinking was shown to be a predictor of all three criteria—avoiding physical contact, maintaining physical hygiene, and supporting COVID-19 restrictive mitigation policies. Cognitive reflection was predictive of lesser adherence to stricter hygiene and only very weakly predictive of lesser policy support. Furthermore, there was no evidence of these effects varying across political contexts. The mediation analysis suggested a partial mediation effect of COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs on the relationships of open-mindedness and cognitive reflection with physical distancing (but not adherence to stricter hygiene) and COVID-19 policy support, albeit very small and significant primarily due to sample size. There was also no evidence of these effects varying across political contexts. Finally, we have not been able to find strong evidence of political orientation modifying the relationship between analytical thinking and COVID-19 behaviors and policy support, although we explored the pattern of these effects in the US and Canadian samples for exploratory purposes and comparison with other similar studies.

scholarly journals Public Response to the Implementation of Health Protocols during the Covid-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Angle Lustre ◽  
Liza Chiu
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Places ◽  
Public Response ◽  
The Public ◽  
Transmission Chain ◽  
Public Reaction

The public's reaction to the implementation of health protocols during the Covid-19 pandemic is discussed in this report, as well as the idea of enforcing public health protocols, the relevance of implementing health protocols, and the public's reaction to implementing health protocols during the Covid-19 pandemic. This thesis is a quantitative one that relies on data gathered from surveys. The public reaction demonstrates that health guidelines are needed to strengthen attempts to avoid and monitor COVID-19 for people in public places and hospitals in order to avoid the emergence of new epicenters / clusters during the pandemic, as shown by the 78 percent who cooperate and the 22 percent who deliberately and inadvertently disregard. The community's position in breaking the COVID-19 transmission chain, or the possibility of contracting and distributing it, must be accomplished by the implementation of health protocols. The community's reaction to COVID 19 varies; some people really follow the government's protocol, which some people understand; but, for economic reasons, they still operate outside the home to survive.

scholarly journals Twitter Discussions and Emotions About the COVID-19 Pandemic: Machine Learning Approach (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jia Xue ◽  
Junxiang Chen ◽  
Ran Hu ◽  
Chen Chen ◽  
Chengda Zheng ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Machine Learning ◽  
Latent Dirichlet Allocation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Response Monitoring ◽  
Learning Approach ◽  
Learning Approaches ◽  
Public Response ◽  
The Public ◽  
Machine Learning Approach

BACKGROUND It is important to measure the public response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Twitter is an important data source for infodemiology studies involving public response monitoring. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study is to examine COVID-19–related discussions, concerns, and sentiments using tweets posted by Twitter users. METHODS We analyzed 4 million Twitter messages related to the COVID-19 pandemic using a list of 20 hashtags (eg, “coronavirus,” “COVID-19,” “quarantine”) from March 7 to April 21, 2020. We used a machine learning approach, Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), to identify popular unigrams and bigrams, salient topics and themes, and sentiments in the collected tweets. RESULTS Popular unigrams included “virus,” “lockdown,” and “quarantine.” Popular bigrams included “COVID-19,” “stay home,” “corona virus,” “social distancing,” and “new cases.” We identified 13 discussion topics and categorized them into 5 different themes: (1) public health measures to slow the spread of COVID-19, (2) social stigma associated with COVID-19, (3) COVID-19 news, cases, and deaths, (4) COVID-19 in the United States, and (5) COVID-19 in the rest of the world. Across all identified topics, the dominant sentiments for the spread of COVID-19 were anticipation that measures can be taken, followed by mixed feelings of trust, anger, and fear related to different topics. The public tweets revealed a significant feeling of fear when people discussed new COVID-19 cases and deaths compared to other topics. CONCLUSIONS This study showed that Twitter data and machine learning approaches can be leveraged for an infodemiology study, enabling research into evolving public discussions and sentiments during the COVID-19 pandemic. As the situation rapidly evolves, several topics are consistently dominant on Twitter, such as confirmed cases and death rates, preventive measures, health authorities and government policies, COVID-19 stigma, and negative psychological reactions (eg, fear). Real-time monitoring and assessment of Twitter discussions and concerns could provide useful data for public health emergency responses and planning. Pandemic-related fear, stigma, and mental health concerns are already evident and may continue to influence public trust when a second wave of COVID-19 occurs or there is a new surge of the current pandemic.

Social Media and Beliefs about Climate Change: A Cross-National Analysis of News Use, Political Ideology, and Trust in Science

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trevor Diehl ◽  
Brigitte Huber ◽  
Homero Gil de Zúñiga ◽  
James Liu
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
Country Level ◽  
Emerging Media ◽  
Climate Skepticism ◽  
The Individual ◽  
National Analysis

Abstract This study explores the individual- and country-level factors that influence how getting news from social media relates to people’s beliefs about anthropogenic climate change. Concepts of psychological distance and motivated reasoning are tested using multilevel analysis with survey data in 20 countries (N = 18,785). Results suggest that using social media for news is associated with a decrease in climate skepticism across the sample. However, social context at the individual-level (conservative political ideology and low trust in science) and at the macro-level (high gross domestic product and individualism) moderate the effect, and therefore reduce social media’s potential to inform the public about climate change. This study contributes to conversations about the ability of emerging media to address science issues, particularly in developing countries.

scholarly journals Psychological well-being as part of the public health debate? Insight into dimensions, interventions, and policy

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Trudel-Fitzgerald ◽  
Rachel A. Millstein ◽  
Christiana von Hippel ◽  
Chanelle J. Howe ◽  
Linda Powers Tomasso ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Positive Psychology ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Psychological Well Being ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
Health Community

Abstract Background Increasing evidence suggests that psychological well-being (PWB) is associated with lower disease and mortality risk, and may be enhanced with relatively low-cost interventions. Yet, dissemination of these interventions remains limited, in part because insufficient attention has been paid to distinct PWB dimensions, which may impact physical health outcomes differently. Methods This essay first reviews the empirical evidence regarding differential relationships between all-cause mortality and multiple dimensions of PWB (e.g., life purpose, mastery, positive affect, life satisfaction, optimism). Then, individual-level positive psychology interventions aimed at increasing PWB and tested in randomized-controlled trials are reviewed as these allow for easy implementation and potentially broad outreach to improve population well-being, in concert with efforts targeting other established social determinants of health. Results Several PWB dimensions relate to mortality, with varying strength of evidence. Many of positive psychology trials indicate small-to-moderate improvements in PWB; rigorous institution-level interventions are comparatively few, but preliminary results suggest benefits as well. Examples of existing health policies geared towards the improvement of population well-being are also presented. Future avenues of well-being epidemiological and intervention research, as well as policy implications, are discussed. Conclusions Although research in the fields of behavioral and psychosomatic medicine, as well as health psychology have substantially contributed to the science of PWB, this body of work has been somewhat overlooked by the public health community. Yet, the growing interest in documenting well-being, in addition to examining its determinants and consequences at a population level may provoke a shift in perspective. To cultivate optimal well-being—mental, physical, social, and spiritual—consideration of a broader set of well-being measures, rigorous studies, and interventions that can be disseminated is critically needed.

Does the Public Hold Governors Accountable for Policy Outcomes?

2021 ◽  
pp. 106591292110410
Author(s):  
Jennifer Wolak ◽  
Srinivas Parinandi
Keyword(s):  
Job Performance ◽  
Economic Performance ◽  
State Level ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Government Performance ◽  
Congressional Election ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
Data Source

What are the origins of gubernatorial popularity? Past studies debate whether governors are substantively evaluated based on their performance in office, with some arguing that the origins of approval may be idiosyncratic to particular governors. These studies typically consider gubernatorial approval in a handful of states or patterns of approval in the aggregate. We improve on this research by drawing on a richer data source: the Cooperative Congressional Election Study. We consider both individual-level and state-level explanations of gubernatorial popularity with a sample of over 300,000 respondents across the 50 states from 2006 to 2018. We explore how party, policy outcomes, and government performance shape levels of gubernatorial approval. We show that people evaluate governors based on the ideological direction of policy outcomes in the states. When state policy outcomes align with their ideological preferences, people report higher levels of approval for the job performance of their governor. We also confirm the importance of party and state economic performance for gubernatorial approval.

Comparative Analysis of State Level Health Policy Support for Opioid Abuse Mitigation in Rural America

2021 ◽  
pp. 137-161
Author(s):  
Carrie Shaver ◽  
James Johnson ◽  
Richard Greenhill ◽  
Sudha Nadimidla
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Policy ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Financial Burden ◽  
State Level ◽  
Opioid Use Disorder ◽  
Policy Support ◽  
Rural America ◽  
Opioid Use

In rural America, opioid use disorder (OUD) continues to adversely impacted familial, public, and economic systems, creating extraordinary societal and financial burden. This comparative analysis of state-level public health policy and practices in rural opioid use abatement promotes the development and implementation of contextualized evidence-based comprehensive policy initiatives. Policy analysis across select highly affected states (Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, and West Virginia) and exemplar OUD policy response states (Colorado, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Vermont) was performed using a systematic review of literature, legislation, plans, and policies. Findings included close alignment between states’ OUD policies and public health best practice standards; minimized differences between exemplar and highly affected states policy responses; and resource driven gaps in opioid epidemic legislation, regulation, guidelines, strategic plans, and initiatives. Furthermore, it is advocated that public and private stakeholders committed to health equity must seek reductions in opioid related disease and mortality through increased resource allocation.

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