Journal of Public Health-Heidelberg最新文献

Aims: This study examines the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on postpartum mothers in England, with the aim of identifying opportunities to improve maternal experience and wellbeing. The postpartum/postnatal period is widely acknowledged as a time when mothers require greater levels of support from multiple sources. However, stay-at-home orders, commonly known as "lockdown," deployed in some countries to limit COVID-19 transmission reduced access to support. In England, many postpartum mothers navigated household isolation within an intensive mothering and expert parenting culture. Examining the impact of lockdown may reveal strengths and weaknesses in current policy and practice.

Subject and methods: We conducted online focus groups involving 20 mothers living in London, England, with "lockdown babies," following up on our earlier online survey on social support and maternal wellbeing. We thematically analysed focus group transcripts, and identified key themes around Lockdown Experience and Determinants of Lockdown Experience.

Results: Participants raised some positives of lockdown, including fostering connections and protection from external expectations, but also raised many negatives, including social isolation, institutional abandonment, and intense relationships within the household. Potential reasons behind variations in lockdown experience include physical environments, timing of birth, and number of children. Our findings reflect how current systems may be "trapping" some families into the male-breadwinner/female-caregiver family model, while intensive mothering and expert parenting culture may be increasing maternal stress and undermining responsive mothering.

Conclusions: Facilitating partners to stay at home during the postpartum period (e.g., increasing paternity leave and flexible working) and establishing peer/community support to decentre reliance on professional parenting experts may promote positive postpartum maternal experience and wellbeing.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10389-023-01922-4.

Aim: Digital device usage, especially during the pandemic, has catapulted into a new age problem, the computer vision syndrome. This study aimed to quantify the prevalence and determinants of digital eye strain (DES).

Subject and methods: A total of 345 university students in India were surveyed in June-July 2022, by a validated tool, the Computer Vision Syndrome Questionnaire (CVS-Q) © in this cross-sectional study. According to American Optometric Association, digital eye strain and computer vision syndrome are synonyms. Non-parametric tests of medians were used to compare the median DES scores, Chi square test to compare categorical variables, and binary logistic regression to find the determinants of DES.

Results: The average age of the study participants was 21.0 ± 2.2 years, ranging between 18-26 years with 52.8% females and 47.2% males. The prevalence of DES was 45.5% (CI 95% = 40.2%-50.8%). Any existing eye disease (p-value = 0.000, OR = 0.41, 95% CI = 0.26-0.65), average daily screen time (p-value = 0.001, OR = 1.61, 95% CI = 1.22-2.13) and using gadgets in the dark (p-value = 0.000, OR = 0.37, 95% CI = 0.23-0.61) were significant determinants of the same.

Conclusion: Framing guidelines limiting the hours allotted for online classes for university students are imperative, with promotion of ergonomic practices for digital device usage such as blue light filters and night mode on devices.

Aim: The accessibility of social media data has allowed researchers to measure official-public interactions during COVID-19. However, previous work analyzing official posts or public comments has failed to explore the link between the two. Therefore, this study investigates the relationship between the communication strategies of public health agencies (PHAs) on TikTok and public emotional/sentiment tendencies in COVID-19 normalization.

Subject and methods: This study uses the 2022 Shanghai city closure event as a public health communication case study in the context of COVID-19 normalization, using TikTok as a data source. We first analyze the communication strategies adopted by the PHA based on the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) model. Then, we classify the sentiment of public comments using the Large-Scale Knowledge Enhanced Pre-Training for Language Understanding and Generation (ERNIE) pre-training model. Finally, we explore the connection between PHA communication strategies and public sentiment tendencies.

Results: First, the public's sentiment tendencies differ at different stages. Therefore, appropriate communication strategies should be developed stage-by-stage. Second, the public's emotional disposition to different communication strategies varies: government statements, vaccines, and prevention and control programs are more likely to produce a friendly comment environment, while policy and new cases per day are more likely to produce unfavorable comment content. However, this does not mean that policy and new cases per day should be avoided; the judicious use of these two strategies can help PHAs understand the current issues causing public dissatisfaction. Third, videos with celebrity appearances can significantly increase positive public sentiment and, thereby, public participation.

Conclusion: We propose an improved CERC guideline for China based on the Shanghai lockdown case.

Aim: This paper investigates the effect of a religious holiday (Eid-ul-Fitr in Pakistan) on compliance behaviour instituted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Longstanding religion-based norms of behaviour during the Eid holidays (traveling to meet family members, praying in large gatherings, hugging) may counteract newly established (and weaker) norms of health-preserving behaviours.

Method: We study the impact of Eid-ul-Fitr on compliance with COVID guidelines for a sample of university students. Our effects are identified by unprompted delays in fielding a survey measuring compliance with prescribed behaviours.

Results: We find that compliance with guidelines declines immediately after the religious holiday in our sample of students, with no observable decline in other well documented predictors of compliance behaviour (risk perceptions, trust in the authorities). We find that this decline in compliance is largely attributable to male participants, with one important exception. We further confirm our results by conducting robustness checks incorporating matching techniques and a smaller follow-up study where we randomize invitations to the survey.

Conclusion: We conclude that amid the pandemic, newly formed norms pertaining to healthcare guidelines (focusing on social-distancing) emerged, and were subsequently undercut by longstanding norms of behaviour following a religious celebration: Eid-ul-Fitr. This paper underscores the fragility of these newly emerged norms, especially when challenged by a more well-entrenched, traditional norm.

Aim: Covid-19 pandemic and its relative containment measures have affected populations' quality of life and psychological well-being worldwide. The fear related to the pandemic and the imposed containment measures has acted as a trigger causing a global increase in negative mental health states. Thus, we aimed to explore the relationship between fear of covid-19 and mental health via QoL (the first and the second lockdown in Italy, 2020).

Subject and methods: Through a quantitative cross-lagged path model research design, the study investigates people's fear of Covid-19, quality of life, and negative mental states in a population of 444 Italian adults (Mean=40.7; Standard Deviation=16.9; 80% women), in the period between the first and the second waves of the pandemic.

Results: Results show that participants' Covid-19 fear decreased between waves, contributing to a decrease in negative mental states (stress, anxiety and depression), thus improving the perceived quality of life. Furthermore, quality of life emerged as able to buffer the impact of fear of Covid on people's psychological distress in short and medium terms, confirming its central role in regulating mental distress.

Conclusion: The study suggests important guidelines for developing interventions to support the populations' well-being and mental health.

Aim: University students are sexually active, and the sexual risk behavior of this group is higher than that of the general population. The prevention of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) emphasizes the need for comprehensive knowledge about behaviors for STI protection and the actual realization of these behaviors.

Subject and methods: First, an online questionnaire was developed to record the knowledge and realization of STI-protective behaviors among students at Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HUAS) to conduct quantitative cross-sectional interviews. The sample included 1532 students. Specific aspects of the interview are based on lower response rates. The correlations were then tested by Spearman's rank correlation coefficient and Pearson's chi-squared test.

Results: Significant positive correlations were identified between the self-efficacy (SE) and the use of condoms, STI vaccinations, STI tests, and HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Significant negative correlations were suggested between substance use and the use of condoms and the use of PrEP and the intake of antiretroviral therapy (ART). Significant positive correlations were identified between the knowledge about STI-protective behaviors and the usage of STI-protective vaccinations, STI tests, and ART. Significant positive correlations were identified between the experiences in terms of STIs and the knowledge about STI-protective vaccinations, use of PrEP, and use of ART.

Conclusion: Moreover, the results indicate that students with a divergent sexual identity have a higher level of knowledge about STI-protective behaviors. The sexual health of university students should be improved by preventive measures to improve the sexual health of individual students and their social environments.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10389-023-01876-7.

Aim: To identify predictors of transportation-related barriers to healthcare access in a North American suburb.

Subject and methods: Data from the 2022 Scarborough Survey were used, comprising n = 528 adults living in Scarborough, which is a subu

Results: Of the sampled individuals, 34.5% experienced the outcome. In the multivariable model, younger age (RR = 3.03), disability (RR = 2.60), poor mental health (RR = 1.70) and reliance on public transit (RR = 2.09) were associated with greater risk of experiencing the outcome. Full-time employment, reliance on active travel and reliance on others for transportation were specifically associated with greater risk of experiencing a transportation-related barrier to vaccination.

Conclusion: In suburban areas such as Scarborough, transportation-related barriers to healthcare access have a disproportionate impact on groups defined by important demographic, health and transportation-related characteristics. These results corroborate that transportation is an important determinant of health in suburban areas, the absence of which may exacerbate existing inequities among the most vulnerable individuals in a given population.

Aim: The COVID-19 epidemic has caused risk and uncertainty. This study answers whether and how psychological distress and digital sports influence willingness to take the vaccine and precautionary savings.

Subject and methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study with an online survey sample of 1016 Shanghai residents who live and work there and are aged between 16-60. All of them experienced the COVID-19 lockdown in Shanghai. We used logistic regressions to examine the relationships between the variables of interest.

Results: Three findings were demonstrated. First, psychologically distressed individuals are less inclined to take the vaccine. Second, those engaged in fitness activities via digital media platforms are more willing to get vaccinated. Third, psychologically distressed individuals and digital video-based physical exercisers are more likely to precautionary save.

Conclusions: This study contributes to the literature by documenting how people changed their life from the perspective of finance and health during the lockdown and providing practical implications.

Aim: Coronavirus is an airborne and infectious disease and it is crucial to check the impact of climatic risk factors on the transmission of COVID-19. The main objective of this study is to determine the effect of climate risk factors using Bayesian regression analysis.

Methods: Coronavirus disease 2019, due to the effect of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, has become a serious global public health issue. This disease was identified in Bangladesh on March 8, 2020, though it was initially identified in Wuhan, China. This disease is rapidly transmitted in Bangladesh due to the high population density and complex health policy setting. To meet our goal, The MCMC with Gibbs sampling is used to draw Bayesian inference, which is implemented in WinBUGS software.

Results: The study revealed that high temperatures reduce confirmed cases and deaths from COVID-19, but low temperatures increase confirmed cases and deaths. High temperatures have decreased the proliferation of COVID-19, reducing the virus's survival and transmission.

Conclusions: Considering only the existing scientific evidence, warm and wet climates seem to reduce the spread of COVID-19. However, more climate variables could account for explaining most of the variability in infectious disease transmission.

Background: A large number of deaths could be avoided by improving health behaviours. The degree to which people invest in their long-term health is influenced by how much they believe they can control their risk of death. Identifying causes of death believed to be uncontrollable, but likely to occur, may provide actionable targets for health interventions to increase control beliefs and encourage healthier behaviours.

Method: We recruited a nationally representative online sample of 1500 participants in the UK. We assessed perceived control, perceived personal likelihood of death, certainty of risk estimation, and perceived knowledge for 20 causes of death. We also measured overall perceived uncontrollable mortality risk (PUMR) and perceived prevalence for each of the Office for National Statistics' categories of avoidable death.

Findings: Risk of death due to cancer was considered highly likely to occur but largely beyond individual control. Cardiovascular disease was considered moderately controllable and a likely cause of death. Drugs and alcohol were perceived as risks both high in control and low in likelihood of death. However, perceptions of control over specific causes of death were found not to predict overall PUMR, with the exception of cardiovascular disease. Finally, our sample substantially overestimated the prevalence of drug and alcohol-related deaths in the UK.

Conclusions: We suggest that more can be done by public health communicators to emphasise the lifestyle and behavioural changes that individuals can make to reduce their general cancer risk. More work is needed to understand the barriers to engaging with preventative behaviours and maintaining a healthy heart. Finally, we call for greater journalistic responsibility when reporting health risks to the public.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10389-023-01910-8.