Responding to turbulent times: Coping with the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath in a probability-based US national sample

2019年12月，科学家发现了一种与武汉肺炎暴发有关的新型冠状病毒(新冠肺炎)-中国，并被怀疑起源于人畜共患病。在3个月内，这次疫情被世界卫生组织列为大流行，美国宣布进入全国紧急状态。在接下来的一年里，超过50万美国人死于这种疾病，还有数百万人患病。此外，美国居民同时应对其他各种连锁的集体创伤(经济衰退、种族驱动的社会动荡、与天气有关的灾难以及有争议的总统选举)。在这种动荡的背景下，新冠肺炎的变体已经蔓延到世界各地。尽管如此，在为新冠肺炎开发安全有效的疫苗方面，还是传来了意想不到的好消息，而且随着时间的推移，它们在美国的推出速度加快了。了解美国人如何应对大流行以及政府应对大流行的行动(例如，疫苗推出)是指导政策制定者制定国家政策以减轻其对公共卫生和福利影响的关键信息。2020年，研究小组与芝加哥大学的NORC合作，研究了ameriSak小组的6500多名个人，他们应对和应对个人和集体经历的创伤。ameriSak小组是全美具有代表性的基于概率的成年人样本。最初的数据是在2020年3月和4月，也就是美国大流行开始时收集的，第二波数据是在2020年9月和10月收集的。学者们将对这些受访者进行第三次调查，因为疫苗接种仍在继续，大流行在世界各地起伏不定，美国人回到了大流行后的现实。该团队将继续研究对大流行及其相关应激源的情感(恐惧、担忧、痛苦)、认知(感知风险、时间感知)和行为(健康保护行为)反应，并研究随着时间的推移，对大流行的早期反应和不断演变的心理过程如何影响结果。该研究还考察了媒体对新冠肺炎的广泛报道和直接暴露于与大流行相关的压力源(如失业、亲人死亡)与应对大流行的心理社会反应之间的关系，以及随着时间的推移，认知和情感过程如何塑造风险评估、行为反应和心理健康结果。最后，心理-社会反应也与社区、县和州一级的参数(例如，行为限制、失业率、COVID死亡人数)相对应。有限的研究采用了社会生态学的方法来应对传染病，或者研究了社区层面的因素可能如何影响对未来危险的认知--特别是那些具有如此不确定和致命后果的危险。该项目研究了应对新冠肺炎危机的变异性预测因素，并推进了未来应对高度紧张的国家威胁的概念性工作。这些发现可以帮助政策制定者、服务提供商、媒体成员和教育工作者设计基于证据的、具有成本效益的、对民众需求敏感的风险沟通材料和干预努力。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

In December 2019, scientists identified a novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) that was associated with an outbreak of pneumonia in Wuhan, China and that was suspected of being zoonotic in origin. Within 3 months, this outbreak was labeled a pandemic by the World Health Organization, and a national emergency was declared in the United States. Over the next year, over 500,000 Americans lost their lives to the disease and millions more became ill. In addition, U.S. residents simultaneously coped with a variety of other cascading collective traumas (an economic recession, race-driven social unrest, weather-related disasters, and a contentious presidential election). In the context of this turbulence, variants of COVID-19 have spread worldwide. Nonetheless, there has been unexpectedly good news regarding the development of safe and effective vaccines for COVID-19, and their rollout across the U.S. has accelerated over time. Understanding how Americans respond to the pandemic and government actions to address the pandemic (e.g., vaccine rollout) is critical information that can guide policymakers as they develop national policies to mitigate its impact on public health and welfare. In 2020, in collaboration with NORC at the University of Chicago, the research team studied over 6,500 individuals from the AmeriSpeak panel, a nationally representative probability-based sample of adults across the United States, as they responded to and coped with both personally- and collectively-experienced traumas. Initial data were collected in March and April 2020, at the start of the pandemic in the U.S., and a second wave of data was collected in September and October 2020. The scholars will conduct a third survey of these respondents as vaccinations continue, the pandemic waxes and wanes across the world, and Americans return to a post-pandemic reality. The team will continue to study emotional (fear, worry, distress), cognitive (perceived risk, time perception), and behavioral (health protective behaviors) responses to the pandemic and its associated stressors and examine how early responses to the pandemic and evolving psychological processes have shaped outcomes over time. The research also examines how widespread media coverage of COVID-19 and direct exposures to pandemic-related stressors (e.g., job loss, death of a loved one) are associated with psycho-social responses to the pandemic, and how cognitive and affective processes shape risk assessments, behavioral responses, and mental health outcomes over time. Finally, psycho-social responses are also mapped against neighborhood, county, and state-level parameters (e.g., behavioral restrictions, unemployment rate, COVID-deaths). Limited research has taken a social ecological approach to infectious disease response or examined how community-level factors may affect perceptions of risk of future hazards – especially ones with such uncertain and deadly outcomes. This project examines predictors of variability in response to the COVID-19 crisis, as well as advances future conceptual work on coping with highly stressful national threats. The findings can help policymakers, service providers, members of the media, and educators design risk communication materials and intervention efforts that are evidence-based, cost-effective, and sensitive to the needs of the populace.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.