| NSF Org: |
SES Division of Social and Economic Sciences |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | April 29, 2020 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | April 29, 2020 |
| Award Number: | 2028062 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Robert O'Connor
roconnor@nsf.gov (703)292-7263 SES Division of Social and Economic Sciences SBE Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences |
| Start Date: | May 1, 2020 |
| End Date: | April 30, 2021 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $109,440.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $109,440.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
886 CHESTNUT RIDGE ROAD MORGANTOWN WV US 26505-2742 (304)293-3998 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
94 Beechurst Avenue Morgantown WV US 26505-0001 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | Decision, Risk & Mgmt Sci |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.075 |
ABSTRACT
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.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
This project had the goal of researching how residents of Appalachia responded to the COVID-19 pandemic within the first two months of protective state lockdowns (April 2020 – June 2020). The primary activity for this project was to survey 730 Appalachians, every two weeks for a two month period, and ask how they thought about COVID-19 and mitigations behaviors (such as hand-washing and social distancing), how much they actually did those behaviors, how much they looked for information about COVID-19, their mental health experience, their views of politics and their state’s leadership, and how easy it was for them to access healthcare resources.
The results of this project found that Appalachians largely began the pandemic with relatively high perceptions of risk from COVID-19, saw protective behaviors as effective, looked for information from expert sources like the Federal Government, and had high levels of stress, anxiety, and depression. However, all of these dropped at a consistent rate among participants, resulting in fewer enacted protective behaviors, seeing COVID-19 as a lesser threat, and a decrease in self-reported negative mental health outcomes. These trends continued throughout the two-month study period, and saw political conservatives decreasing their behavior at a faster rate (but with political liberals still decreasing their behavior steadily). The strongest drivers of protective behavior over time included how serious or severe COVID-19 was seen to be, how likely an individual believed they were to personally experience COVID-19, how easy protective behaviors were to enact, and how effective individuals believed protective behaviors were in preventing or protecting against COVID-19.
Results from this project provide novel tests of social and behavioral science models and theoretical frameworks, allowing for testing of predictions over time and in an applied setting. A majority of research in these traditions take place at a single time point or at two time points to examine if effects are maintained. This study allowed for the examination of social phenomena evolving over time, during an ever-changing crisis scenario, and points to important topics that science and health communicators should focus on in the early stages of a crisis, such as a pandemic.
This project’s results were also able to make a substantial impact on real-world practice of science and health communication. Specifically, findings from this project lead to educational sessions for health educators and community leaders who advocated for increased protective behavior in their predominantly rural communities, as well as informing the earliest stages of West Virginia’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout. Other applications included detailed case studies in university courses that allowed undergraduate and graduate students to explore course concepts in evolving and complicated scenarios. Results also contribute to a report in the WV HealthLink project comparing an individual’s willingness to seek care with their perceived and actual access to primary care.
Last Modified: 08/22/2021
Modified by: Daniel S Totzkay
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