Health and Well-being Impact of Coronavirus: A Case study of West Midlands vs England

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic represents a global public health emergency that is becoming an economic crisis, a social crisis and a well-being crisis. Countries around the world have taken unprecedented precautionary measures against COVID-19 to control the spread of the disease and to ensure the well-being of their people. This study investigates the health and well-being impact of COVID-19 based on a case study of West Midlands - a region having several big local authorities including Birmingham, the second biggest UK city - compared to England. The data used in this study are open data from the Office for National Statistics <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">1</sup> . In collaboration with Birmingham City Council and using data analysis techniques and Business Intelligence tools and strategies we demonstrate how to convert raw survey data into actionable and coherent information. The output from our research can be used by local governments to better understand the impact of the Coronavirus and ensued lock-downs on the health and well-being of West Midlands citizens with the aim to support decision making and to direct the provisioning of services. Our analysis showed that the dimensions of well-being (e.g. worthwhile, satisfaction, happiness, anxiety) are improving for West Midlands and England citizens, and that citizens are less worried about the effect of the coronavirus outbreak (from 76% in mid February to 57% in mid May in West Midlands), however, they are less optimistic about when life will return to normal (more than a year). In addition, utilising Linear Regression and correlation analysis, it was proven that the COVID-19 economic and social issues have an influence on the well-being of citizens, thus emphasising the importance of addressing these issues which will consequently mitigate their effect on well-being.