RAPID: COVID-19, Consumption, and Multi-dimensional Analysis of Risk (C-CAR)

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The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed household dynamics and dramatically changed food, energy, and water consumption within the home. Stay-at-home orders and social distancing has caused U.S. households to shift to working and schooling from home, curtail outside activities, and stop eating in restaurants. Furthermore, as many households face job loss and increasing home utility and grocery bills, U.S. residents are experiencing the economic impacts of the crisis, while at the same time assessing and responding to health risks. The project team has a unique opportunity to study these shifting household consumption and behavioral responses and quantify the associated economic and environmental impacts. The team will collect household food, energy, and water consumption data as well as survey response data from 180 participating households in one Midwestern county and compare it to data collected before the stay-at-home orders were put in place. Questions are being added to previously administered monthly surveys to study participants regarding their perceptions and behavioral responses to COVID-19, including changes in household consumption habits and travel behavior, information sources, and health risk perceptions and responses. With this data, the team will be able to produce timely research results that inform current and future response policies to ensure food, energy, and water security in times of public health crises.This first-of-its-kind study will investigate how household behavior changes in response to sudden exogenous events like pandemics, the persistence of those changes over time, and the environmental impacts of changing consumption dynamics. Results will offer novel insights on longitudinal processes in household sense-making, risk response, behavior change under crisis, and persistence. Specifically, the data can provide insight into i) how the pandemic is shaping household consumption and COVID-19 related behavioral responses, and the persistence of these changes over time; ii) the environmental impacts of changing consumption patterns, and the implications if changes persist; iii) how behavioral responses vary based on socio- demographics, perceptions of risks, information networks, and institutional trust; and iv) how pandemic perceptions and responses correlate with those associated with other socio- environmental risks such as climate change. Outcomes from this study will improve understanding of how to identify and address the material and emotional risks U.S. residents are facing under this crisis. Identifying changes in household economics and challenges to provisioning food, energy, and water can improve the collective ability to aid households in responding to these ongoing challenges and mitigate future shocks to supply systems. In addition, empirical evidence of consumption changes that benefit the environment and that households can readily adapt into their routines may provide important insights on potential pathways towards sustainability.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.