Abstract
In the post-pandemic era, the need for resilient and flexible COVID-19 prevention strategies in rural areas has become increasingly prominent. Based on a sample of 2229 rural residents nationwide, the Structural Equation Model was adopted to analyze the influence of social capital and technological empowerment on pandemic resilience in rural areas. The proportion of diversity, adequacy, and effectiveness of pandemic prevention measures taken by communities was about 57%. Social capital (0.667) and technological empowerment (0.325) had a significant positive impact on rural resilience and pandemic prevention. Social capital plays a mediating role between technological empowerment and pandemic resilience in rural areas. The risk of disease in society stimulates the inherent social capital factors in villages, with the individual social network generating strong social support. Technological empowerment can not only provide new methods for the connection of social capital, but also bring new means for rural authorities to improve their governance capabilities. Social trust in social capital plays an important role in rural resilience and pandemic prevention. The indirect effect of technological empowerment through social capital on pandemic resilience is greater than its direct effect. Social capital construction is the key to rural resilience and pandemic prevention.
Highlights
COVID-19 is a once-in-a-century health crisis that will affect people for decades to come
Social capital plays an intermediary effect between technological empowerment and pandemic resilience in rural areas
Hypothesis 3 (H3): Social capital plays an intermediary effect between technological empowerment and pandemic resilience
Summary
COVID-19 is a once-in-a-century health crisis that will affect people for decades to come. During the outbreak in Wuhan, about 5 million people left Wuhan to go back home, the vast majority of which returned to rural China [1]. Rural pandemic prevention is regarded as a crucial influence on overall pandemic prevention nationwide. By the end of 2020, there were 509.79 million rural residents in China, distributed in 690,000 administrative villages. There were only about 610,000 village-level clinics, showing the unfair distribution of public health facilities in rural areas (see Table 1). Many scholars have stressed the importance of issues in rural areas when dealing with the pandemic, such as backward medical and health facilities [2], poor medical and health conditions [3], lack of prevention and control materials, and villagers’ lack of awareness of prevention and control [4]
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