Monitoring Depression Trend on Twitter during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Observational Study (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yipeng Zhang ◽  
Hanjia Lyu ◽  
Yubao Liu ◽  
Xiyang Zhang ◽  
Yu Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Economic Loss ◽  
The United States ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Fusion Model ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Depression Level ◽  
Sleep Talking ◽  
Big Events

BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic has severely affected people’s daily lives and caused tremendous economic loss worldwide. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the pandemic has increased the depression level among the population. However, systematic studies of depression detection and monitoring during the depression are lacking. OBJECTIVE This study aims (1) to develop a method to accurately identify people with depression by analyzing their tweets and (2) to monitor the population-wise depression level on Twitter. METHODS To study this subject, we design an effective regular expression-based search method and create by far the largest English Twitter depression dataset containing 2,575 distinct identified depression users (N=2,575) with their past tweets. To examine the effect of depression on people’s Twitter language, we train three transformer-based depression classification models on the dataset, evaluate their performance with progressively increased training sizes, and compare the model’s “tweet chunk”-level and user-level performances. Furthermore, inspired by psychological studies, we create a fusion classifier that combines deep learning model scores with psychological text features and users’ demographic information and investigate these features’ relations to depression signals. Finally, we demonstrate our model’s capability of monitoring both group-level and population-level depression trends by presenting two of its applications during the COVID-19 pandemic. RESULTS Our fusion model demonstrates an accuracy of 78.9% on a test set containing 446 people (N=446), half of which are identified as suffering from depression. Conscientiousness, neuroticism, appearance of first-person pronouns, talking about biological processes such as eat and sleep, talking about power, and exhibiting sadness are shown to be important features in depression classification. Further, when used for monitoring the depression trend, our model shows that depressive users, in general, respond to the pandemic later than the control group based on their tweets. It is also shown that three states of the United States - New York (NY), California (CA), and Florida (FL) - share a similar depression trend as the whole US population. When compared to NY and CA, people in FL demonstrate a significantly lower level of depression. CONCLUSIONS This study proposes an efficient method that can be used to analyze the depression level of different groups of people on Twitter. We hope this study can raise awareness among researchers and the general public of COVID-19’s impact on people’s mental health. The non-invasive monitoring system can also be rapidly adapted to other big events besides COVID-19 and might be useful during future outbreaks.

scholarly journals The South Pacific in the works of Robert Dean Frisbie

2001 ◽  
Vol 34 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 59-71
Author(s):  
Nataša Potočnik
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Short Stories ◽  
South Pacific ◽  
The United States ◽  
The South ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Cook Islands ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Family ◽  
Women And Children

Robert Dean Frisbie (1896-1948) was one of the American writers who came to live in the South Pacific and wrote about his life among the natives. He published six books between 1929 and his death in 1948. Frisbie was horn in Cleveland, Ohio, on 16 April1896. He attended the Raja Yoga Academy at Point Loma in California. Later he enlisted in the U. S. army and was medically discharged from the army in 1918 with a monthly pension. After his work as a newspaper columnist and reporter for an army newspaper in Texas, and later for the Fresno Morning Republican, he left for Tahiti in 1920. In Tahiti he had ambitious writing plans but after four years of living in Tahiti, he left his plantation and sailed to the Cook Islands. He spent the rest of his life in the Cook Islands and married a local girl Ngatokorua. His new happiness gave him the inspiration to write. 29 sketches appeared in the United States in 1929, collected by The Century Company under the title of The Book of Puka-Puka. His second book My Tahiti, a book of memories, was published in 1937. After the death of Ropati 's beloved wife his goals were to bring up his children. But by this time Frisbie was seriously ill. The family left Puka-Puka and settled down on the uninhabited atoll of Suwarrow. Later on they lived on Rarotonga and Samoa where Frisbie was medically treated. Robert Dean Frisbie died of tetanus in Rarotonga on November 18, 1948. Frisbie wrote in a vivid, graceful style. His characters and particularly the atoll of Puka-Puka are memorably depicted. Gifted with a feeling for language and a sense of humor, he was able to capture on paper the charm, beauty, and serenity of life of the small islands in the South Pacific without exaggerating the stereotypical idyllic context and as such Frisbie's contribution to South Pacific literature went far deeper than that of many writers who have passed through the Pacific and wrote about their experiences. Frisbie's first book The Book of Puka-Puka was published in New York in 1929. It is the most endearing and the most original of his works. It was written during his lifetime on the atoll Puka-Puka in the Cook Islands. It is a collection of 29 short stories, episodic and expressively narrative in style. This is an account of life on Puka-Puka that criticizes European and American commercialism and aggressiveness, and presents the themes of the praise of isolation, the castigation of missionaries, and the commendation of Polynesian economic collectivism and sexual freedom. At the same time, the book presents a portrait of Frisbie himself, a journal of his day-to-day experiences and observations and avivid description of the natives on the island. Frisbie's unique knowledge of the natives and their daily lives enabled him to create in The Book of Puka-Puka an impressive gallery of vi vid, amusing, yet very real and plausible Polynesians. The second  book of Robert Dean Frisbie to appear in print was My Tahiti (1937), a book of -memoirs, published in Boston. My Tahiti is a book of 30 short stories about the author and his living among Tahitians. Again, Robert Dean Frisbie is the main hero in the book and as such the book is autobiographical in a sense as well. This book is a personal record which has charm and distinction as it has sincerity, which is in the men, women and children of Tahiti, and which brings an effortless and unpretentious humor to depict a South Seas idyll and a quiet poise to withstand the insidious romance of the tropical islands, too.

scholarly journals Contextualizing Developmental Math Content into Introduction to Sociology in Community Colleges

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Parker ◽  
Amy E. Traver ◽  
Jonathan Cornick
Keyword(s):  
Community College ◽  
New York ◽  
Community Colleges ◽  
Social Life ◽  
The United States ◽  
Pass Rate ◽  
Developmental Math ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Math Skills ◽  
Control Group Design

Across community colleges in the United States, most students place into a developmental math course that they never pass. This can leave them without the math skills necessary to make informed decisions in major areas of social life and the college credential required for participation in growing sectors of our economy. One strategy for improving community college students’ pass rate in developmental math courses is the contextualization of developmental math content into the fabric of other courses. This article reviews an effort to contextualize developmental math content (i.e., elementary algebra) into Introduction to Sociology at Kingsborough Community College and Queensborough Community College, both of the City University of New York, during the spring 2016 semester. Data from a pretest/posttest control-group design implemented across the two campuses reveals the significance of this strategy for some sociology students’ grasp of discrete mathematical skills and success in developmental math.

Impact on Nonfirearm Deaths of Firearm Laws Affecting Firearm Deaths: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 110 (10) ◽  
pp. e1-e9
Author(s):  
Rosanna Smart ◽  
Terry L. Schell ◽  
Matthew Cefalu ◽  
Andrew R. Morral
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Time Series Data ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Population Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Series Data ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Order Effects ◽  
Inferential Statistics ◽  
Gun Policy

Background. There is debate whether policies that reduce firearm suicides or homicides are offset by increases in non–firearm-related deaths. Objectives. To assess the extent to which changes in firearm homicides and suicides following implementation of various gun laws affect nonfirearm homicides and suicides. Search Methods. We performed a literature search on 13 databases for studies published between 1995 and October 31, 2018 (PROSPERO CRD42019120105). Selection Criteria. We included studies if they (1) estimated an effect of 1 of 18 included classes of gun policy on firearm homicides or suicides, (2) included a control group or comparison group and evaluated time series data to establish that policies preceded their purported effects, and (3) provided estimated effects of the policy and inferential statistics for either total or nonfirearm homicides or suicides. Data Collection and Analysis. We extracted data from each study, including study timeframe, population, and statistical methods, as well as point estimates and inferential statistics for the effects of firearm policies on firearm deaths as well as either nonfirearm or overall deaths. We assessed quality at the estimate (study–policy–outcome) level by using prespecified criteria to evaluate the validity of inference and causal identification. For each estimate, we derived the mortality multiplier (i.e., the ratio of the policy’s effect on total homicides or suicides; expressed as a change in the number of deaths) as a proportion of its effect on firearm homicides or suicides. Finally, we performed a meta-analysis to estimate overall mortality multipliers for suicide and homicide that account for both within- and between-study heterogeneity. Main Results. We identified 16 eligible studies (study timeframes spanning 1977–2015). All examined state-level policies in the United States, with most estimating effects of multiple policies, yielding 60 separate estimates of the mortality multiplier. From these, we estimated that a firearm law’s effect on homicide, expressed as a change in the number of total homicide deaths, is 0.99 (95% confidence interval = 0.76, 1.22) times its effect on the number of firearm homicides. Thus, on average, changes in the number of firearm homicides caused by gun policies are neither offset nor compounded by second-order effects on nonfirearm homicides. There is insufficient evidence in the existing literature on suicide to indicate the extent to which the effects of gun policy changes on firearm suicides are offset or compounded by their effects on nonfirearm suicides. Authors’ Conclusions. State gun policies that reduce firearm homicides are likely to reduce overall homicides in the state by approximately the same number. It is currently unknown whether the same holds for state gun policies that significantly reduce firearm suicides. The small number of studies meeting our inclusion criteria, issues of methodological quality within those studies, and the possibility of reporting bias are potential limitations of this review. Public Health Implications. Policies that reduce firearm homicides likely have large benefits for public health as there is little evidence to support a strong substitution effect between firearm and nonfirearm homicides at the population level. Further research is needed to determine whether policies that produce population-level reductions in firearm suicides will translate to overall declines in suicide rates.

scholarly journals Changes in SARS CoV-2 Seroprevalence Over Time in Ten Sites in the United States, March – August, 2020

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Travis Lim ◽  
Mark Delorey ◽  
Nicolette Bestul ◽  
Michael Johannsen ◽  
Carrie Reed ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Population Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
South Florida ◽  
Population Projections ◽  
Cumulative Number ◽  
Geographic Scale ◽  
Convenience Sample ◽  
Over Time

Abstract Background Monitoring of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) antibody prevalence can complement case reporting to inform more accurate estimates of SARS-CoV-2 infection burden, but few studies have undertaken repeated sampling over time on a broad geographic scale. Methods We performed serologic testing on a convenience sample of residual sera obtained from persons of all ages, at ten sites in the United States from March 23 through August 14, 2020, from routine clinical testing at commercial laboratories. We age-sex-standardized our seroprevalence rates using census population projections and adjusted for laboratory assay performance. Confidence intervals were generated with a two-stage bootstrap. We used Bayesian modeling to test whether seroprevalence changes over time were statistically significant. Results Seroprevalence remained below 10% at all sites except New York and Florida, where it reached 23.2% and 13.3%, respectively. Statistically significant increases in seroprevalence followed peaks in reported cases in New York, South Florida, Utah, Missouri and Louisiana. In the absence of such peaks, some significant decreases were observed over time in New York, Missouri, Utah, and Western Washington. The estimated cumulative number of infections with detectable antibody response continued to exceed reported cases in all sites. Conclusions Estimated seroprevalence was low in most sites, indicating that most people in the U.S. have not been infected with SARS-CoV-2 as of July 2020. The majority of infections are likely not reported. Decreases in seroprevalence may be related to changes in healthcare-seeking behavior, or evidence of waning of detectable anti-SARS CoV-2 antibody levels at the population level. Thus, seroprevalence estimates may underestimate the cumulative incidence of infection.

scholarly journals Monitoring trends and differences in COVID-19 case-fatality rates using decomposition methods: Contributions of age structure and age-specific fatality

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Dudel ◽  
Tim Riffe ◽  
Enrique Acosta ◽  
Alyson van Raalte ◽  
Cosmo Strozza ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Age Structure ◽  
Case Fatality ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Decomposition Methods ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Over Time

AbstractThe population-level case-fatality rate (CFR) associated with COVID-19 varies substantially, both across countries time and within countries over time. We analyze the contribution of two key determinants of the variation in the observed CFR: the age-structure of diagnosed infection cases and age-specific case-fatality rates. We use data on diagnosed COVID-19 cases and death counts attributable to COVID-19 by age for China, Germany, Italy, South Korea, Spain, the United States, and New York City. We calculate the CFR for each population at the latest data point and also for Italy over time. We use demographic decomposition to break the difference between CFRs into unique contributions arising from the age-structure of confirmed cases and the age-specific case-fatality. In late April 2020, CFRs varied from 2.2% in South Korea to 13.0% in Italy. The age-structure of detected cases often explains more than two thirds of cross-country variation in the CFR. In Italy, the CFR increased from 4.2% to 13.0% between March 9 and April 22, 2020, and more than 90% of the change was due to increasing age-specific case-fatality rates. The importance of the age-structure of confirmed cases likely reflects several factors, including different testing regimes and differences in transmission trajectories; while increasing age-specific case-fatality rates in Italy could indicate other factors, such as the worsening health outcomes of those infected with COVID-19. Our findings lend support to recommendations for data to be disaggregated by age, and potentially other variables, to facilitate a better understanding of population-level differences in CFRs. They also show the need for well designed seroprevalence studies to ascertain the extent to which differences in testing regimes drive differences in the age-structure of detected cases.

scholarly journals Monitoring trends and differences in COVID-19 case fatality rates using decomposition methods: Contributions of age structure and age-specific fatality

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Dudel ◽  
Tim Riffe ◽  
Enrique Acosta ◽  
Alyson A van Raalte ◽  
Cosmo Strozza ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Age Structure ◽  
Case Fatality ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Decomposition Methods ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Over Time

The population-level case-fatality rate (CFR) associated with COVID-19 varies substantially, both across countries time and within countries over time. We analyze the contribution of two key determinants of the variation in the observed CFR: the age-structure of diagnosed infection cases and age-specific case-fatality rates. We use data on diagnosed COVID-19 cases and death counts attributable to COVID-19 by age for China, Germany, Italy, South Korea, Spain, the United States, and New York City. We calculate the CFR for each population at the latest data point and also for Italy over time. We use demographic decomposition to break the difference between CFRs into unique contributions arising from the age-structure of confirmed cases and the age-specific case-fatality. In late April 2020, CFRs varied from 2.2% in South Korea to 13.0% in Italy. The age-structure of detected cases often explains more than two thirds of cross-country variation in the CFR. In Italy, the CFR increased from 4.2% to 13.0% between March 9 and April 22, 2020, and more than 90% of the change was due to increasing age-specific case-fatality rates. The importance of the age-structure of confirmed cases likely reflects several factors, including different testing regimes and differences in transmission trajectories; while increasing age-specific case-fatality rates in Italy could indicate other factors, such as the worsening health outcomes of those infected with COVID-19. Our findings lend support to recommendations for data to be disaggregated by age, and potentially other variables, to facilitate a better understanding of population-level differences in CFRs. They also show the need for well designed seroprevalence studies to ascertain the extent to which differences in testing regimes drive differences in the age-structure of detected cases.

scholarly journals Economic Losses Associated with COVID-19 Deaths in the United States

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Troy Quast ◽  
Ross Andel ◽  
Sean Gregory ◽  
Eric A. Storch
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Economic Loss ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Losses ◽  
Economic Damage ◽  
Years Of Life Lost ◽  
Jel Codes ◽  
A Value ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Individual Choices

AbstractIn addition to the overwhelming health effects of COVID-19, the disease has inflicted unprecedented economic damage. Vast resources have been directed at COVID-19 testing and health care while economic activity has been substantially curtailed due to disruptions resulting from individual choices and government policies. This study estimates the economic loss associated with COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. from February 1, 2020 through July 11, 2020. We use estimates of years of life lost that are based on the age and gender of decedents. Using a value of life year estimate of $66,759, we calculate economic losses of roughly $66 billion. The losses are concentrated in New York and New Jersey, which account for 17.5% of the total losses. Our analysis of per capita losses by state indicates that the highest values are located in the northeastern region of the country, while the values in the western states are relatively low. While economic losses associate with COVID-19 deaths is just one aspect of the pandemic, our estimates can provide context to the value of prevention and mitigation efforts.JEL codesI12, I18, J17

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