RAPID: Rural Crisis Decision-Making: Risk Information Management and Reactions to Precaution Recommendations During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Appalachia

冠状病毒的传播导致信息和错误信息的广泛传播，但防护建议主要针对城市问题(例如，避免使用公共交通或在家中工作)，而这些问题在美国阿巴拉契亚地区等农村地区可能无关紧要或不可能实现。了解该农村地区个人的风险信息需求和管理策略对于管理应对新冠肺炎大流行和未来大流行病至关重要，因为由于多种原因(如农村人口发病率和死亡率上升、获得医疗保健的机会有限)，这些地区似乎特别容易受到此类健康危机的影响。由于许多心理、沟通、政治和人口因素影响个人处理和应对与重大、广泛的健康威胁有关的信息，如新冠肺炎大流行，对冠状病毒的反应并不是可靠的预防性或防御性的。这项研究的跨学科方法考虑了风险应对所固有的个人层面的心理特征、沟通过程、关系互动和媒体使用行为，以及党派和依赖于党派信息源的相互作用，以及对信息和护理获取的基于地点的限制，这些都是美国农村特别是阿巴拉契亚地区的特征。从这项研究中收集到的知识将有助于改善阿巴拉契亚居民的健康和更有效地使用沟通策略应对未来疫情的能力。本研究使用多波量化小组研究，调查了阿巴拉契亚农村地区对冠状病毒大流行的反应。这项研究对Qualtrics招募和管理的阿巴拉契亚成年人进行了为期8周的纵向研究。每个人完成每两周一次的调查，以衡量和检查冠状病毒/新冠肺炎对官方预防措施的看法和反应的轨迹。这个项目试图了解个体对风险、有效性和预防措施的感知，以及压力和焦虑等因素是如何随着时间的推移而变化的，这是由于时间不变的预测因素和时间变化的预测因素。只在第一波数据收集期间评估的不变衡量标准包括个性特征、不确定性不容忍、党派偏见、政治意识形态、到最近初级保健机构的旅行时间、医疗保险覆盖范围和个人人口统计数据(即年龄、性别、教育程度、收入和种族/族裔)。在所有四个时间点评估的时变测量包括：感知的新冠肺炎严重性、易感性和预防有效性；新冠肺炎不确定性差异、情绪反应、预期结果、有效性感知和信息管理行为；对新冠肺炎消息、媒体使用、新冠肺炎思想清单、抑郁、焦虑和压力、与新冠肺炎相关的重复想法和行为、新冠肺炎解读偏差、就业状况以及感知的护理障碍的评估。这项研究的结果将促进几个社会科学学科对人类行为的了解，为关于阿巴拉契亚地区焦虑和精神健康的应用研究提供信息，并改进旨在增加未来健康危机中保护性健康行动的健康沟通干预措施。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The spread of the coronavirus has led to extensive dissemination of information as well as misinformation, but protective recommendations center mainly on urban issues (e.g., avoiding public transit or working from home) that may be irrelevant or impossible in rural settings such as the Appalachian region of the U.S. Understanding the risk information needs and management strategies of individuals in this rural region is vital to managing the response to the COVID-19 pandemic and future pandemics, as these areas appear to be particularly vulnerable to such health crises for a host of reasons (e.g., increased morbidity and mortality in rural populations, limited access to healthcare). Reactions to the coronavirus have not been reliably preventive or defensive due to a host of psychological, communicative, political, and demographic factors that influence how individuals process and respond to information related to significant, widespread health threats such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The interdisciplinary approach of this research considers individual-level psychological characteristics, communicative processes, relational interactions, and media use behaviors intrinsic to risk response, as well as the interplay of partisanship and relied-upon partisan information sources and place-based constraints on information and care access that characterize rural America and especially Appalachia. Knowledge gleaned from this research will help improve Appalachian residents’ health and ability to use communication strategies more effectively in response to future pandemics.Using a multi-wave quantitative panel study, this research investigates responses to the coronavirus pandemic in rural Appalachia. The research features an 8 week longitudinal study of Appalachian adults recruited and managed by Qualtrics. Each individual completes bi-weekly surveys to measure and examine trajectories of coronavirus/COVID-19 perceptions and reactions to official precautions. This project seeks to understand how individuals’ perceptions of risk, efficacy, and precautions, and factors such as stress and anxiety change over time due to time-invariant predictors and time-varying predictors. Time-invariant measures, assessed only during the first wave of data collection, include personality traits, uncertainty intolerance, partisanship, political ideology, travel time to nearest primary care facility, health insurance coverage, and personal demographics (i.e., age, sex, education, income, and race/ethnicity). Time-variant measures, assessed at all four time points, include perceived COVID-19 severity and susceptibility and precaution efficacy; COVID-19 uncertainty discrepancy, emotional reactions, anticipated outcomes, efficacy perceptions, and information management behaviors; evaluation of COVID-19 messages, media use, COVID-19 thought-listing, depression, anxiety, and stress, repetitive thoughts and behaviors related to COVID-19, COVID-19 interpretation bias, employment status, and perceived impediments to care. Results from this research will advance knowledge of human behavior across several social science disciplines, inform applied research regarding anxiety and mental health in Appalachia, and improve health communication interventions designed to increase protective health actions in future health crises.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.