Inverse correlates of COVID-19 mortality across European countries during the first versus subsequent waves

The objectives of the study were to calculate the standardised mortality rates (SMRs) for COVID-19 in European Union/European Economic Area countries plus the UK and Switzerland and to evaluate the correlation between SMRs and selected indicators in the first versus the subsequent waves until 23 June 2021. We used indirect standardisation (using Italy as the reference) to compute SMRs and considered 16 indicators of health and social well-being, health system capacity and COVID-19 response. The highest SMRs were in Belgium, the UK and Spain in the first wave (1.20-1.84) and in Hungary, Czechia and Slovakia in the subsequent waves (2.50-2.69). Human Development Index (HDI), life expectancy, urbanisation and healthcare expenditure had positive correlations with SMR in the first wave (rho=0.30-0.46), but negative correlations (rho=-0.67 to -0.47) in the subsequent waves. Retail/recreation mobility and transit mobility were negatively correlated with SMR in the first wave, while transit mobility was inversely correlated with SMR in the subsequent waves. The first wave hit most hard countries with high HDI, high life expectancy, high urbanisation, high health expenditures and high tourism. This pattern may reflect higher early community seeding and circulation of the virus. Conversely, in the subsequent waves, this pattern was completely inversed: countries with more resources and better health status did better than eastern European countries. While major SMR differences existed across countries in the first wave, these differences largely dissipated by 23 June 2021, with few exceptions

Comparison of vaccination and booster rates and their impact on excess mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic in European countries

AimTo evaluate the effect of vaccination/booster administration dynamics on the reduction of excess mortality during COVID-19 infection waves in European countries.MethodsWe selected twenty-nine countries from the OurWorldInData project database according to their population size of more than one million and the availability of information on dominant SARS-CoV-2 variants during COVID-19 infection waves. After selection, we categorized countries according to their “faster” or “slower” vaccination rates. The first category included countries that reached 60% of vaccinated residents by October 2021 and 70% by January 2022. The second or “slower” category included all other countries. In the first or “faster” category, two groups, “boosters faster’’ and “boosters slower” were created. Pearson correlation analysis, linear regression, and chi-square test for categorical data were used to identify the association between vaccination rate and excess mortality. We chose time intervals corresponding to the dominance of viral variants: Wuhan, Alpha, Delta, and Omicron BA.1/2.Results and discussionThe “faster” countries, as opposed to the “slower” ones, did better in protecting their residents from mortality during all periods of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and even before vaccination. Perhaps higher GDP per capita contributed to their better performance throughout the pandemic. During mass vaccination, when the Delta variant prevailed, the contrast in mortality rates between the “faster” and “slower” categories was strongest. The average excess mortality in the “slower” countries was nearly 5 times higher than in the “faster” countries, and the odds ratio (OR) was 4.9 (95% CI 4.4 to 5.4). Slower booster rates were associated with significantly higher mortality during periods dominated by Omicron BA.1 and BA.2, with an OR of 2.6 (CI 95%. 2.1 to 3.3). Among the European countries we analyzed, Denmark, Norway, and Ireland did best, with a pandemic mortality rate of 0.1% of the population or less. By comparison, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Russia had a much higher mortality rate of up to 1% of the population.ConclusionThus, slow vaccination and booster administration was a major factor contributing to an order of magnitude higher excess mortality in “slower” European countries compared to more rapidly immunized countries

Healthcare workers' heterogeneous mental-health responses to prolonging COVID-19 pandemic : a full year of monthly follow up in Finland

Background The COVID-19 pandemic strained healthcare workers but the individual challenges varied in relation to actual work and changes in work. We investigated changes in healthcare workers' mental health under prolonging COVID-19 pandemic conditions, and heterogeneity in the mental-health trajectories. Methods A monthly survey over a full year was conducted for employees of the HUS Helsinki University Hospital (n = 4804) between 4th June 2020 to 28th May 2021. Pandemic-related potentially traumatic events (PTEs), work characteristics (e.g., contact to COVID-19 patients), local COVID-19 incidence, and demographic covariates were used to predict Mental Health Index-5 (MHI-5) and Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) in generalized multilevel and latent-class mixed model regressions. Results Local COVID-19 log-incidence (odds ratio, OR = 1.21, with 95% CI = 1.10-1.60), directly caring for COVID-19 patients (OR = 1.33, CI = 1.10-1.60) and PTEs (OR = 4.57, CI = 3.85-5.43) were all independently associated with psychological distress, when (additionally) adjusting for age, sex, profession, and calendar time. Effects of COVID-19 incidence on mental health were dissociable from calendar time (i.e., evolved in time) whereas those on sleep were not. Latent mental-health trajectories were characterized by a large class of "stable mental health" (62% of employees) and minority classes for "early shock, improving" (14%) and "early resilience, deteriorating" mental health (24%). The minority classes, especially "early shock, improving", were more likely to live alone and be exposed to PTEs than the others. Conclusions Healthcare workers faced changing and heterogeneous mental-health challenges as the COVID-19 pandemic prolonged. Adversity and mental ill-being may have accumulated in some employees, and factors like living arrangements may have played a role. Knowledge on employees' demographic and socioeconomic background, as well as further research on the factors affecting employees' resilience, may help in maintaining healthy and efficient workforce in the face of a prolonging pandemic.Peer reviewe

Essays zu sozialem Zusammenhalt, Ungleichheit, Umverteilungspräferenzen und prosozialem Verhalten

The dissertation consists of five self-containing chapters in the realm of social cohesion. The first two chapters deal with preferences for redistribution, the first in an analysis of survey data from several countries and the second in an experimental investigation of work effort in the presence of redistribution in a simplified version of a welfare state. The third chapter tests the gift exchange hypothesis with wage inequality in a natural field experiment in Colombia. The fourth chapter analyzes whether racial attitudes are explained by prosocial and discriminating behavior in economic games and how these behavioral measures interact with the effect of protests on support for the Black Lives Matter movement and racial prejudice. Finally, the fifth chapter examines the interactions of political polarization and prosocial behavior with protective behavior and assessments of the governmental response regarding the COVID-19 pandemic at the state and national level, using data from a large-scale survey run in the first summer of the pandemic on a representative sample of the U.S. population

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY IN ADOLESCENCE LEVELS CHANGES AND FACTORS OF INFLUENCE

Physical activity (PA) is considered a health imperative, so it is understandable that physical inactivity imposes a serious health threat. The fact that alarming decline in physical activity levels (PALs) occurs in adolescence is particularly concerning. Accordingly, the dissertation deals with PA issues among adolescents in regular conditions and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Generally, changes and correlates of the PALs in the period from 14 to 18 years of age and in the period of the COVID-19 pandemic are investigated. Four presented studies analyze the specified problems in adolescents from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina and are among the first studies that examined this issue in Southeastern Europe. The results are, to some extent, clarifying PA changes and factors influencing PALs, indicating significant gender and environmental differences, the association between cigarette smoking and PALs, and the association between parental/familial factors and PALs. Apart from giving the insight into background of changes in PALs in adolescence, the results obtained provide guidance in developing preventive strategies intended to reduce the decline in physical activity progressively happening in adolescents

Viral Strain on the System: Organizational Differences in Healthcare Systems and the Control of Infectious Disease Crises

HonorsPolitical ScienceUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/169408/1/pulkakim.pd

The compound risk of heat and COVID-19 in New York City: riskscapes, physical and social factors, and interventions

Climate change is disrupting the fundamental conditions of human life and exacerbating existing inequity by placing further burdens on communities that are already vulnerable. Risk exposure varies by where people live and work. In this article, we examine the spatial overlap of the compound risks of COVID-19 and extreme heat in New York City. We assess the relationship between socio-demographic and natural, built and social environmental characteristics, and the spatial correspondence of COVID-19 daily case rates across three pandemic waves. We use these data to create a compound risk index combining heat, COVID-19, density and social vulnerability. Our findings demonstrate that the compound risk of COVID-19 and heat are public health and equity challenges. Heat and COVID-19 exposure are influenced by natural, built, and social environmental factors, including access to mitigation infrastructure. Socio-demographic characteristics are significant indicators of COVID-19 and heat exposure and of where compound vulnerability exists. Using GIS mapping, we illustrate how COVID-19 risk geographies change across the three waves of the pandemic and the particular impact of vaccinations before the onset of the third wave. We, then, use our compound risk index to assess heat interventions undertaken by the City, identify neighborhoods of both adequate and inadequate coverage and provide recommendations for future interventions

The impact of COVID-19 lockdown stringency on loneliness in five European countries

Rationale: The coronavirus pandemic has forced governments to implement a variety of different dynamic lockdown-stringency strategies in the last two years. Extensive lockdown periods could have potential unintended consequences on mental health, at least for at-risk groups. Objective: We present novel evidence on the heterogeneous direct and indirect effects of lockdown-stringency measures on individuals’ perception of social isolation (i.e. loneliness) using panel data from five European countries (Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Sweden), which tracks changes in both in-person and remote social interactions between May 2020 and March 2021. Method: We combine data from the COME-HERE panel survey (University of Luxembourg) and the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT). We implement a dynamic mixture model in order to estimate the loneliness sub-population classes based on the severity of loneliness, as well as the evolution of social interactions. Results: While loneliness is remarkably persistent over time, we find substantial heterogeneity across individuals, identifying four latent groups by loneliness severity. Group membership probability varies with age, gender, education and cohabitation status. Moreover, we note significant differences in the impact of social interactions on loneliness by degree of severity. Older people are less likely to feel lonely, but were more affected by lockdown measures, partly due to a reduction in face-to-face interactions. On the contrary, the younger, especially those living alone, report high levels of loneliness that are largely unaffected by changes in the pandemic after lockdown measures were initially implemented. Conclusions: Understanding the heterogeneity in loneliness is key for the identification of at-risk populations that can be severely affected by extended lockdown measures. As part of public-health crisis-response systems, it is critical to develop support measures for older individuals living alone, as well as promoting continuous remote communication for individuals more likely to experience high levels of loneliness

Analysis and Comparison of the Scope, Impacts, and Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic and Climate Change as Major Crises in the United States

The COVID-19 pandemic has become the global crisis of 2020 and the focal point of much public attention. Climate change is the ongoing crisis of the industrial and post-industrial ages. The United States and the rest of the world are attempting to navigate both crises. This study researched and analyzed the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change as the major crises affecting the United States of America in terms of the scope of both crises, their impacts, and national responses. This project draws on the knowledge learned throughout the Energy Policy and Climate Change program such as the principles of climate change, its effects, and challenges with regards to implementing effective adaptation and mitigation measures. To the best of this researcher’s knowledge, this project is the first attempt to analyze both COVID-19 and climate change as contemporaneous crises occurring within the United States. As the pandemic continues to evolve, every passing month has offered new information relevant to this project, highlighting both this project’s novelty and the dynamism of the crisis. The research needed to complete this project drew initially from over two-hundred resources, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Reports to newspaper articles. Additionally, it forced “deep-dives” into the impacts of climate change, challenging preconceived notions, and brought to light the reality that the people most likely to suffer from one crisis are most likely to suffer both. Looking beyond this project, a next step beyond comparing and contrasting will be to splice the two crises to learn their independent effects and how overlapping impacts interact with each other. This would allow a cumulative analysis of the impacts on shared, vulnerable demographics in order to understand how crises in the U.S. continue the oppression of certain demographics of American society. This project should be considered a first step toward better understanding COVID-19, climate change, and the way in which crises are processed in 21st century American society