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Abstract The Covid‐19 pandemic greatly impacted global public policy implementation. There is a lack of research synthesizing the lessons learned during Covid‐19 from a policy perspective. A systematic review was conducted following PRISMA guidelines to examine the literature on public policy implementation during the Covid‐19 pandemic in order to gain comprehensive insights into current topics and future directions. Five clusters of topics were identified: lessons from science, crisis governance, behavior and mental health, beyond the crisis, and frontlines and trust. Extensive collaboration among public health departments emerged as a significant research theme. Thirty recommendations for future research were identified, including the examination of frontline worker behavior, the use of just tech in policy implementation, and the investigation of policies driving improvements in global public health. The findings indicate that current research on public policy implementation during the Covid‐19 pandemic extends beyond health and economic crisis‐related policies. However, further studies in a post‐pandemic context are needed to validate the identified topics and future directions.
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The Sociotechnical Construction of Distrust during the Covid‐19 Pandemic
Abstract What were the impacts of the Covid‐19 pandemic on trust in public health information, and what can be done to rebuild trust in public health authorities? This essay synthesizes insights from science and technology studies, information studies, and bioethics to explore sociotechnical factors that may have contributed to the breakdown of trust in public health information during the Covid‐19 pandemic. The field of science and technology studies lays out the dynamic nature of facts, helping to explain rapid shifts in public health messaging during Covid‐19 and reasons they produced a lack of trust in public health authorities. The information field looks at how facts are sociotechnically constructed through systems of classification, illustrating how extrascientific factors influence public health authorities. Putting these perspectives alongside bioethics principles raises additional factors to consider. The goal of this essay is to learn from past failures to point toward a brighter future where trust in public health authorities can be rebuilt, not on faith, but rather through striving for calibrated trust within which, through a virtuous circle, trust is validated.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2027426
- PAR ID:
- 10538239
- Publisher / Repository:
- Hastings Center Report
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Hastings Center Report
- Volume:
- 53
- Issue:
- S2
- ISSN:
- 0093-0334
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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null (Ed.)In response to COVID-19, a vast number of visualizations have been created to communicate information to the public. Information exposure in a public health crisis can impact people’s attitudes towards and responses to the crisis and risks, and ultimately the trajectory of a pandemic. As such, there is a need for work that documents, organizes, and investigates what COVID-19 visualizations have been presented to the public. We address this gap through an analysis of 668 COVID-19 visualizations. We present our findings through a conceptual framework derived from our analysis, that examines who, (uses) what data, (to communicate) what messages, in what form, under what circumstances in the context of COVID-19 crisis visualizations. We provide a set of factors to be considered within each component of the framework. We conclude with directions for future crisis visualization research.more » « less
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Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a devastating toll around the world. Since January 2020, the World Health Organization estimates 14.9 million excess deaths have occurred globally. Despite this grim number quantifying the deadly impact, the underlying factors contributing to COVID-19 deaths at the population level remain unclear. Prior studies indicate that demographic factors like proportion of population older than 65 and population health explain the cross-country difference in COVID-19 deaths. However, there has not been a comprehensive analysis including variables describing government policies and COVID-19 vaccination rate. Furthermore, prior studies focus on COVID-19 death rather than excess death to assess the impact of the pandemic. Through a robust statistical modeling framework, we analyze 80 countries and show that actionable public health efforts beyond just the factors intrinsic to each country are important for explaining the cross-country heterogeneity in excess death.more » « less
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Context:Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, state and local health departments served as risk communicators to the public; however, public health practitioners have limited resources at their disposal when trying to communicate information, especially when guidance is rapidly changing. Identifying how the population gathers information across channels and which subsets of the population utilize which channels can help practitioners make the best use of these limited resources. Objective:To identify how individuals utilized different information channels to get COVID-19–related information and determine its effect on one COVID-19–related action: vaccine intentions. Design:This study applies latent class analysis to utilization of information channels to characterize information consumption patterns during the COVID-19 infodemic and then explores the relationship between these patterns and vaccine hesitancy. Setting:The data were collected from theCOVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Survey, which is a nationally representative sample of US adults 18 years and older recruited from Social Science Research Solutions (SSRS)'s Opinion Panel. Participants:The online survey was conducted between April 7 and April 11, 2021, after the COVID-19 vaccine was available to all adults and enrolled more than 3000 respondents (n = 3014). Main Outcome Measure(s):Respondents were asked about their frequency of information seeking related to the COVID-19 vaccine, sociodemographics, and vaccine perceptions. Results:Based on fit statistics and prior research, we identified 6 latent classes that characterize information seeking: Nonseekers, Legacy, Legacy + Facebook/Instagram, Traditional Omnivore, Omnivore + Broad Social Media, and Twitter. Sociodemographics, political, economic, and COVID-19 exposure variables are associated with different patterns of seeking information about COVID-19. Membership in 3 of these classes was associated with higher rates of vaccine refusal and vaccine hesitancy. Discussion:The study has implications for public health officials and policymakers who use media channels to share news and health information with the public. Information should be tailored to the sociodemographic profiles of those users who are likely consuming information across multiple different channels.more » « less
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Background People’s health-related knowledge influences health outcomes, as this knowledge may influence whether individuals follow advice from their doctors or public health agencies. Yet, little attention has been paid to where people obtain health information and how these information sources relate to the quality of knowledge. Objective We aim to discover what information sources people use to learn about health conditions, how these sources relate to the quality of their health knowledge, and how both the number of information sources and health knowledge change over time. Methods We surveyed 200 different individuals at 12 time points from March through September 2020. At each time point, we elicited participants’ knowledge about causes, risk factors, and preventative interventions for 8 viral (Ebola, common cold, COVID-19, Zika) and nonviral (food allergies, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis [ALS], strep throat, stroke) illnesses. Participants were further asked how they learned about each illness and to rate how much they trust various sources of health information. Results We found that participants used different information sources to obtain health information about common illnesses (food allergies, strep throat, stroke) compared to emerging illnesses (Ebola, common cold, COVID-19, Zika). Participants relied mainly on news media, government agencies, and social media for information about emerging illnesses, while learning about common illnesses from family, friends, and medical professionals. Participants relied on social media for information about COVID-19, with their knowledge accuracy of COVID-19 declining over the course of the pandemic. The number of information sources participants used was positively correlated with health knowledge quality, though there was no relationship with the specific source types consulted. Conclusions Building on prior work on health information seeking and factors affecting health knowledge, we now find that people systematically consult different types of information sources by illness type and that the number of information sources people use affects the quality of individuals’ health knowledge. Interventions to disseminate health information may need to be targeted to where individuals are likely to seek out information, and these information sources differ systematically by illness type.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1002/hast.1519
