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了信息和错误信息的广泛传播，但保护性建议主要集中在城市问题上(例如，避免乘坐公共交通工具或在家工作)，这在美国阿巴拉契亚地区等农村地区可能不相关或不可能。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COVID-19大流行和未来大流行至关重要，因为这些地区由于许多原因（例如，农村人口发病率和死亡率增加）似乎特别容易受到此类健康危机的影响。获得医疗保健的机会有限)。由于许多心理、沟通、政治和人口因素影响了个人如何处理和应对与COVID-19大流行等重大、广泛的健康威胁相关的信息，对冠状病毒的反应并非可靠的预防性或防御性。本研究的跨学科方法考虑了个体层面的心理特征、沟通过程、关系互动和风险反应内在的媒体使用行为，以及党派关系和依赖党派信息来源的相互作用，以及美国农村特别是阿巴拉契亚地区对信息和护理获取的基于地点的限制。从这项研究中收集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传播战略应对未来流行病的能力。本研究采用多波定量小组研究，调查了阿巴拉契亚农村地区对冠状病毒大流行的反应。该研究对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。每个人每两周完成一次调查，以衡量和检查冠状病毒/COVID-19的认知轨迹和对官方预防措施的反应。该项目旨在了解个体对风险、疗效和预防措施的看法，以及压力和焦虑等因素如何随着时间的推移而变化，这是由于定常预测因子和时变预测因子。仅在第一波数据收集期间评估的时不变措施包括个性特征、不确定性不容忍、党派偏见、政治意识形态、到最近的初级保健设施的旅行时间、健康保险覆盖面和个人人口统计（即年龄、性别、教育、收入和种族/民族）。在所有四个时间点评估的时变措施包括感知的COVID-19严重程度和易感性以及预防效果；COVID-19不确定性差异、情绪反应、预期结果、疗效认知和信息管理行为；评估COVID-19信息、媒体使用、COVID-19思想清单、抑郁、焦虑和压力、与COVID-19相关的重复想法和行为、COVID-19解释偏见、就业状况和感知到的护理障碍。这项研究的结果将在多个社会科学学科中推进对人类行为的认识，为阿巴拉契亚地区有关焦虑和心理健康的应用研究提供信息，并改善旨在在未来健康危机中增加保护性健康行动的健康沟通干预措施。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识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.