Communities in Crises: The Dynamics of Social Resources for Resilience and Recovery in the Wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19大流行在全球造成严重危害，尤其是其对发病率╱死亡率的悲惨影响。这包括：心理健康恶化，孤独感增加，财务/粮食不安全，经济困难和自杀。虽然这一流行病是全球性的，但其影响并没有在各个社会平等地承受，对脆弱群体的伤害更大，弱势群体、少数民族或青年/老年人。虽然疫苗接种带来了控制大流行的希望，但以前的危机表明，大流行的危害可能会在我们的生活中留下持久的伤疤。因此，迫切需要了解减轻大流行病危害的复原力来源（复原力过程），以及最大限度地减少其长期创伤的因素（恢复过程）。然而，迄今为止，我们对可能推动这种对这一流行病的复原力和复苏的因素知之甚少。本项目旨在填补这一证据空白。该项目旨在从根本上推进我们对社会资源，特别是嵌入在住宅社区-社区社会资本（CSC）-在英国和国际上的恢复/恢复过程中发挥的作用的理解。CSC包括“社交网络[例如，邻里关系、组织参与]以及由此产生的互惠和信任规范“，这些都植根于人们的地方，可以提供至关重要的支持。与其他几场危机一样，COVID-19重新将家庭和社区置于我们生活的中心，大多数人与更广泛的社交网络隔绝，同时关闭了关键服务（例如，儿童保育（学校/儿童保育）可能已成为一个关键的支助来源;特别是对弱势群体而言。因此，该项目研究了大流行前的CSC（与家庭/朋友关系相比）在多大程度上帮助减轻了大流行的危害;哪些方面（例如邻居/组织关系）最有效;缓冲的运作途径（例如财政援助，社会支持）;以及CSC在支持人们康复方面的作用。如果CSC一直在发挥关键作用，那么了解流行病如何影响它也是至关重要的; CSC在哪些人/哪里/为什么会蓬勃发展或枯萎;哪些因素（包括流行病前的CSC存量）决定了社区在流行病中的团结或分裂;以及如何解释人们在流行病中的帮助意愿和实际亲社会行为之间的差异。为了探讨社区支持服务在哪些方面/为什么在支持社会方面更突出，该项目审查了社区支持服务在各国（德国、法国、美国、韩国、日本）的复原力/恢复方面的作用。它还将平衡对CSC的支持作用的分析与对潜在负面影响，特别是感染风险的理解。该项目采用了先进的定量方法，利用（国际）国家纵向数据，这些数据拥有大流行前有关人们生活的关键信息，并对大流行本身进行了调查，使我们能够精细地跟踪大流行的影响以及社会资源在缓冲这些影响和支持我们的复苏方面的作用。该项目将为政策提供重要见解（通过与住房、社区和地方政府部的合作实现）：减少流行病危害和支持恢复的手段，特别是对弱势群体，并展示CSC在哪里/在谁/为什么蓬勃发展/减少，以确定如何支持可以加强这一资源。该项目还将使非政府利益攸关方（特别是那些支持弱势群体的利益攸关方）直接受益，包括：组织作为保护缓冲/恢复驱动因素的作用，以及如何将社区聚集在一起，释放潜在的复原力/恢复来源。这些见解还将使国际危机管理团体受益，因为它们了解了一般危机的复原力/恢复的驱动因素，以及CSC在哪些方面最有效。

The COVID-19 pandemic has wrought acute harm across the world, not least through its tragic impact on morbidity/mortality. This includes: worsening mental health, rising loneliness, financial/food insecurity, economic hardship, and suicide. Though the pandemic's onset was global, its impacts have not been borne equally across societies, with greater harm among vulnerable groups e.g., the disadvantaged, ethnic minorities, or youth/older populations. While vaccinations bring hope the pandemic will be brought under control, previous crises suggest the harms from the pandemic may leave lasting scars across our lives. As such, there is an urgent need to understand the sources of resilience that are mitigating the pandemic's harm (processes of resilience), and the factors minimising its long-term scarring (processes of recovery). However, to date, we know little about what may be driving such resilience and recovery over this pandemic. This project aims to fill this lacuna of evidence. The project aims to radically advance our understanding of the role that social-resources, especially those embedded within residential communities - community social capital (CSC) - play in processes of resilience/recovery in the UK and internationally. CSC comprises 'social networks [e.g., neighbour-ties, organisational involvement] and norms of reciprocity and trust that arise from them', embedded in people's local areas, which can provide vital support. Like few other crises, COVID-19 repositioned households and communities at the centre of our lives, and, with most cut-off from their wider social networks, alongside the closure of key services (e.g., schools/child-care), CSC may have become a key source of support; especially for vulnerable groups. This project thus examines how far pre-pandemic CSC (compared to family-/friend-ties) has been helping mitigate the pandemic's harm; which dimensions (e.g. neighbour-/organisational-ties) are most efficacious; the pathways through which buffering has operated (e.g. financial aid, social support); and CSC's role in supporting people's recovery. If CSC has been playing a key role, it is also vital to know how the pandemic has affected it; amongst whom/where/why CSC may have flourished or withered; what factors (including stocks of pre-pandemic CSC) determined if communities pulled together or apart in the pandemic; and, what explains discrepancies between people's willingness to help and actual pro-sociality in the pandemic. To explore where/why CSC may be more salient for supporting societies, the project examines CSC's role in resilience/recovery cross-nationally (Germany, France, USA, Korea, Japan). It will also balance analyses of CSC's support-role with an understanding of potential negative effects, especially risks of infection. The project takes an advanced quantitative approach, drawing on (inter)national longitudinal data, which possess key pre-pandemic information on people's lives and conducted surveys over the pandemic itself, allowing us to finely track the pandemic's impact and the role of social resources in buffering these impacts and supporting our recovery. The project will provide critical insights for policy (realised via its partnership with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government): into the means of reducing pandemic-harm and supporting recovery, especially for vulnerable groups, and demonstrating where/amongst whom/why CSC is flourishing/diminishing to identify how support can bolster this resource. The project will also directly benefit non-governmental stakeholders (especially those supporting vulnerable groups), including: the role of organisations as protective-buffers/recovery-drivers and how bringing neighbourhoods together may release latent sources of resilience/recovery. Insights will also benefit international crisis management groups, through understanding drivers of resilience/recovery for crises in general, and where CSC is most efficacious.