NSF Org: |
SES Divn Of Social and Economic Sciences |
Recipient: |
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Initial Amendment Date: | March 20, 2020 |
Latest Amendment Date: | March 20, 2020 |
Award Number: | 2026337 |
Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
Program Manager: |
Robert O'Connor
roconnor@nsf.gov (703)292-7263 SES Divn Of Social and Economic Sciences SBE Direct For Social, Behav & Economic Scie |
Start Date: | March 15, 2020 |
End Date: | February 28, 2021 (Estimated) |
Total Intended Award Amount: | $200,000.00 |
Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $200,000.00 |
Funds Obligated to Date: |
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History of Investigator: |
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Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
160 ALDRICH HALL IRVINE CA US 92697-0001 (949)824-7295 |
Sponsor Congressional District: |
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Primary Place of Performance: |
4336 SBSG Irvine CA US 92697-7085 |
Primary Place of Performance Congressional District: |
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Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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Parent UEI: |
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NSF Program(s): |
Decision, Risk & Mgmt Sci, Social Psychology |
Primary Program Source: |
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Program Reference Code(s): |
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Program Element Code(s): |
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Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.075 |
ABSTRACT
In December 2019, scientists identified a novel Coronavirus (COVID-2019) that was associated with an outbreak of pneumonia in Wuhan, China and that was suspected of being zoonotic in origin. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a pandemic, and on March 13, 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump declared a national emergency. Because individuals can transmit the illness prior to exhibiting symptoms (i.e., an ?invisible threat?), and in the absence of a vaccine for protection, the severity of this crisis and the timing of containment in the United States is unknown. In the context of this uncertainty and ambiguity about the immediate future, the research team studies emotional (fear, worry, distress), cognitive (perceived risk), and behavioral (media use, health protective behaviors) responses to the COVID-19 outbreak and how these early responses shape outcomes over time. The scholars examine how widespread media coverage of the COVID-19 outbreak is associated with acute stress responses to the threat, its success (or failure) in affording people the information needed to understand the threat, and how cognitive and affective processes shape risk assessments, behavioral responses, and mental health outcomes. This project is unique in studying the effects of risk perceptions, health protective behaviors, and acute stress on adjustment as an ambiguous global health threat unfolds.
The research is a longitudinal study of 5,000 people from the AmeriSpeak panel, a probability-based nationally representative sample of U.S. households on whom ?baseline? mental and physical health data have been collected prior to the start of the COVID-19 threat in the U.S. Two surveys administered over the next year examine respondents? risk perceptions, fear, media use, health protective behaviors, and distress surrounding the outbreak. The sample is drawn using sample stratification to assure sample representativeness with respect to age, gender, race/ethnicity, and Census Region. For Wave 1, the drawn sample is randomly assigned to one of three nationally representative replicates (i.e., cohorts) that have non-overlapping data collection periods of 2 calendar weeks, for a total of a 6-week fielding period. Each cohort thus represents a representative sample whose interviews are generalizable to point-in-time survey estimates for the 2-week period to which the cohort is mapped. A second survey is fielded on the Wave 1 sample within the next year, as the crisis unfolds (or abates).
Overall, this study assesses risk perceptions, media use, acute stress, social norms, self- and response-efficacy, and protective behaviors at the start of an ambiguous and deadly domestic threat on a large representative sample with existing pre-threat mental and physical health data. This provides a unique opportunity to examine national responses to an ongoing public health crisis as it unfolds, producing research with both theoretical and practical importance. The team has five specific aims: 1) Estimate COVID-19-related media exposure, COVID-19 risk perceptions, trust in institutions managing (and communicating about) COVID-19, and behavioral and emotional responses to perceived COVID-19 threat; 2) Investigate how type (e.g., television, Twitter, online news), amount (e.g., total hours), and content (e.g., imagery) of COVID-19-related media coverage are associated with risk perceptions, and behavioral and emotional responses (e.g., acute stress, somatization, depression); 3) Examine how ambiguity of the COVID-19 threat and inconsistencies in official communications about this threat are associated with perceived risk, as well as emotional and behavioral responses; 4) Investigate whether prior exposure to individual (e.g., childhood violence) and collective (e.g., 9/11) stress are associated with COVID-19-related risk perceptions and behavioral and emotional responses to the COVID-19 threat; and 5) Contrast key theories of health behavior in an epidemiological sample responding to a current and evolving threat. We expect that information collected in this research will advance future conceptual work on coping with highly stressful events by furthering our understanding of the extent to which traditional and non-traditional media coverage of the Coronavirus outbreak may be affecting individuals? risk perceptions and acute stress responses to it, providing information to facilitate early identification of individuals at risk for subsequent difficulties following potential public health crises, and explicitly integrating the stress and coping literature with the literature on risk analysis and perception.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
The COVID-19 pandemic, which began in early 2020 without warning, has provided a tragic collective crisis that has taxed the coping capacity of individuals throughout the world. Addressing viral outbreaks such as COVID-19 requires behavioral interventions that consider disease threats, medical resources for prevention and treatment, and social, political, and economic reactions. The success of those interventions also depends on direct experiences (e.g., to disease or quarantines), secondary stressors (e.g., job loss, isolation), and psychological responses (e.g., risk perceptions, emotional distress) to the outbreak. Thus, successfully managing the COVID-19 pandemic requires substantial scientific effort to understand public behavior and to develop and ensure the successful roll-out of appropriate mitigation strategies that can reduce the spread of illness and death. Through methodologically rigorous, epidemiological research that offers a theoretically-informed understanding of human behavior, subsequent waves of infection from COVID-19 variants can be prevented as our communities re-open. Ours is the only study of which we are aware using a true probability-based representative sample to examine these issues over time. We conducted two surveys (March-April 2020, Sept-Oct 2020) of over 5500 adults from the NORC AmeriSpeak panel, a probability-based nationally representative panel of U.S. households whose baseline mental and physical health status was assessed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic (see project design, Figures 1 and 2). We sought to provide policymakers and the public at large with population-based trend data about mental health, risk perceptions, health protective behaviors, and stress responses to direct and media-based COVID-19 exposures and pandemic-related stressors (e.g., economic stress, loss). Key findings identified during the first seven months of the COVID-19 pandemic include:
- Acute stress and depressive symptoms increased significantly over time as COVID-19 deaths increased across the U.S. Pre-existing mental and physical health diagnoses, daily hours of COVID-19-related media exposure, exposure to conflicting COVID-19 information in media, and secondary stressors all predicted acute stress and depressive symptoms;
- Americans appeared to understand the risk and adopted recommended protective behaviors early in the pandemic and followed them frequently, with higher rates of protective behavior seen female, older, Black and Hispanic respondents and those reporting greater risk perceptions, exposures, and secondary stressors;
- Relative to White respondents, Latinx respondents worried more about social disarray, meeting basic needs, economic impacts, obtaining healthcare, and contracting COVID-19, while Black respondents worried more about economic impacts and people dying;
- Distorted time perception and loneliness increased over time and predicted mental health symptoms and worry about the future over time. As the pandemic unfolded, being lonely made the association between distorted time perception and poor mental health even stronger;
- When comparing the mental health impacts of state-level restrictions (mitigation efforts, cases, or deaths) to person-level exposures (having COVID-19, knowing others who had been sick or died, and exposure to pandemic-related media coverage), person-level exposures were positively associated with psychological distress, loneliness, and traumatic stress symptoms. These results have important implications for mental health, public health, and public policy.
Study results have implications for targeting public health interventions and risk communication efforts to promote community resilience as the pandemic waxes and wanes.
Last Modified: 07/23/2021
Modified by: Roxane C Silver
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