Mental Distress during the Coronavirus Pandemic in Israel: Who Are the Most Vulnerable?

Based on Pearlin’s stress process model and the social inequality approach to health, this study used a social lens to explore the role of socioeconomic inequities in mental distress during the COVID-19 pandemic in Israel. Specifically, we examined people’s pre-pandemic sociodemographic characteristics and economic situation, and the economic effects of the pandemic itself on mental distress. A real-time survey was conducted in May 2020 among 273 adults (ages 20–68), and hierarchical linear models were employed. Findings indicated that groups vulnerable to mental distress in routine times (e.g., women, people with economic difficulties) showed the same pattern during the pandemic. Not only was unemployment related to mental distress, so too was a reduction in work hours. The pandemic’s economic effects (e.g., needing to take out loans, having a worsening financial situation) were also associated with increased mental distress. This study is one of very few studies to explore a wide range of socioeconomic factors and their association with mental distress during the current crisis. The findings call for broader interventions to alleviate the economic distress caused by the pandemic to promote mental health, especially for groups that were vulnerable before the crisis and those most affected economically following the pandemic.

COVID-19 pandemic risk and probability of loan default: evidence from marketplace lending market

As the COVID-19 pandemic adversely affects the financial markets, a better understanding of the lending dynamics of a successful marketplace is necessary under the conditions of financial distress. Using the loan book database of Mintos (Latvia) and employing logit regression method, we provide evidence of the pandemic-induced exposure to default risk in the marketplace lending market. Our analysis indicates that the probability of default increases from 0.056 in the pre-pandemic period to 0.079 in the post-pandemic period. COVID-19 pandemic has a significant impact on default risk during May and June of 2020. We also find that the magnitude of the impact of COVID-19 risk is higher for borrowers with lower credit ratings and in countries with low levels of FinTech adoption. Our main findings are robust to sample selection bias allowing for a better understanding of and quantifying risks related to FinTech loans during the pandemic and periods of overall economic distress.

The Economic Consequences of Banking Crises: The Role of Central Banks and Optimal Independence

A large literature establishes the benefits of central bank independence, yet very few have shown directly negative economic consequences. Furthermore, while prevailing monetary theory suggests CBI should enhance management of economic distress, I argue that independent central banks exhibit tepid responsiveness to banking instability due to a myopic focus on inflation. I show that banking crises produce larger unemployment shocks and credit and stock market contractions when the level of central bank independence is high. Further, I show that these significant economic costs are mitigated when central banks do not have the inflation-centric policy mandates predominantly considered necessary. When the bank has high operational and political independence, banks’ whose policy mandate does not rigidly prioritize inflation produce significantly better outcomes during banking crises. At the same time, I show that this configuration does not produce higher inflation, suggesting it achieves a more flexible design without incurring significant costs.

Community-level Economic Distress, Race, and Risk of Adverse Outcomes Following Heart Failure Hospitalization among Medicare Beneficiaries

Background: Socioeconomic disadvantage is a strong determinant of adverse outcomes in patients with heart failure (HF). However, the contribution of community-level economic distress to adverse outcomes in HF may differ across races. Methods: Patients of self-reported Black, White, and Hispanic race/ethnicity hospitalized with HF between 2014 and 2019 were identified from the 100% CMS MedPAR database. We used patient-level residential zip code to quantify community-level economic distress based on the distressed community index (DCI, Quintile 5: economically distressed vs. Quintiles 1-4: non-distressed). The association of continuous and categorical measures (distressed vs. non-distressed) of DCI with 30-day, 6-month, and 1-year risk-adjusted mortality, readmission burden, and home time were assessed separately by race/ethnicity groups. Results: The study included 1,611,586 White (13.2% economically distressed), and 205,840 Black (50.6% economically distressed) and 89,199 Hispanic (27.3% economically distressed) patients. Among White patients, living in economically distressed (vs. non-distressed) communities was significantly associated with a higher risk of adverse outcomes at 30-days and 1-year follow-up. Among Black and Hispanic patients, the risk of adverse outcomes associated with living in distressed vs. non-distressed communities was not meaningfully different at 30-days and became more prominent by 1-year follow-up. Similarly, in the restricted cubic spline analysis, a stronger and more graded association was observed between DCI score and risk of adverse outcomes in White patients (vs. Black and Hispanic patients). Furthermore, the association between community-level economic distress and risk of adverse outcomes for Black patients differed in rural vs. urban areas. Living in economically distressed communities was significantly associated with a higher risk of mortality and lower home time at 1-year follow-up in rural areas but not urban areas. Conclusions: The association between community-level economic distress and risk of adverse outcomes differs across race-ethnic groups, with a stronger association noted in White patients at short- and long-term follow-up. Among Black patients, the association of community-level economic distress with a higher risk of adverse outcomes is less evident in the short term and is more robust and significant in the long-term follow-up and rural areas.

Paradigm of Family and Community Resilience in the Context of Ideology and Education during the Covid 19 Pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic has severely hit the world since 2020 to this day, significantly impacting the life of communities and nation. Such significant impacts can be seen from two main aspects, namely direct and indirect ones. Direct impacts can be identified from economy and healthcare quality. In terms of economic impacts, the pandemic has caused more people to be into economic distress and economic uncertainty, unemployment to rise, and many to lose a decent everyday life. In terms of impact on healthcare, many have a great difficulty accessing a good healthcare quality and the healthcare quality has decreased in times of the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, the indirect impact can be seen from multiple conditions, starting from education, social issue, ideology, politics, and security. This research focused on the efforts to build family and community resilience amidst the pandemic while radicalism, fundamentalism, and terrorism are still an issue. The aim of this paper was to describe and offer a paradigm of family and community resilience as an effort to reinforce Pancasila ideology in times of the Covid-19 pandemic. The method employed for this research was a qualitative approach through literature studies and empirical research or observation, and hence the analysis used was interpretation and critical discourse analysis. A limitation of this research was only focusing on Pancasila as well as family and society resilience during Covid-19. The result of this study expectedly can be a clear recommendation to family and community resilience paradigm.