Major Public Health Emergency Research Articles

Does the risk spillover in global financial markets intensify during major public health emergencies? Evidence from the COVID-19 crisis

Taking the COVID-19 as an example, we study the impact of major public health emergencies on global financial risk spillovers. We found that the increase in the severity of the epidemic will increase the imported and exported financial risks of the economy, and the improvement in the degree of epidemic prevention and control will have a restraining effect on risk contagion. From a market perspective, the stock and bond markets are the main channel of risk import. In terms of different economies. In terms of different economies, emerging and developing economies are more affected by major public health emergencies compared to developed economies, yet proactive prevention and control measures demonstrate a more significant impact in these regions. The economy with greater response of government policies has the greater the inhibitory effect of epidemic prevention and control on imported and exported financial risks. In addition, the outbreak of Delta and Omicron variants will strengthen the risk-stimulating effect of the severity of the epidemic and weaken the risk-inhibiting effect of epidemic prevention and control. On this basis, we put forward targeted risk prevention and control recommendations.

Crianças na pandemia: contribuições do Curso Nacional de Saúde Mental e Atenção Psicossocial na COVID-19

Abstract Objective Considering the psychosocial repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic on children, this case study aims to describe the work process involved in the construction and execution of the Children in the COVID-19 Pandemic module, which comprised the National Course on Mental Health and Psychosocial Care in COVID-19, hosted by the Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Method Data from the materials that made up the module (booklet, video lesson, forum, and live broadcast), the profile of those enrolled, as well as emerging themes from participants' questions and comments (forum and live broadcast) were analyzed. Results Thirty-one percent of the course participants, who were predominantly female psychologists, completed the module. The booklet, developed with an accessible language, met the general guidelines for the development of manuals aimed at providing guidance on health care, seeking to address emerging demands in order to qualify the care for children in the context of COVID-19. Conclusion There was a great diversity of themes addressed in the material resulting from the forum and the live broadcast, which were discussed in order to contribute to the planning of psychosocial care strategies aimed at mitigating the negative repercussions of the pandemic on child development, as well as to offer a space for sharing knowledge and experiences on professional practice during this major public health emergency.

How do Major Public Health Emergencies Affect Corporate Cost Stickiness? Evidence from China Listed Companies

How do Major Public Health Emergencies Affect Corporate Cost Stickiness? Evidence from China Listed Companies

Two Watersheds of Major Global Public Health Emergencies: History, Reality and Response

The 1918-1919 pandemic influenza and the COVID-19 are the watershed of major global public health emergencies in the industrial age and the digital age. The latter has generality and particularity. The problems faced in the process of coping with the COVID-19 mainly include: prejudice hinders international cooperation; Extreme egoism of some countries and personnel reduces the effectiveness of responding to incidents; Rigid governance system; The theoretical support is insufficient. The causes of the problems are: many problems are long-term; The modernization speed of some countries and personnel is slower than the speed of environmental change; In the process of modernization, the modernization mode of the industrial age is adopted. The macro way to deal with the COVID-19 is to promote the modernization of the governance system and governance capacity, and give birth to the combination of "new system, new capacity - new environment". The micro approaches are: strengthening international cooperation and optimizing the international governance system; Enhance the modernization of national governance and the modernization of people; Effectively innovate the concept and method of governance.

An analysis of the effects of a physical education web-based instructional program on college students exercising at home during COVID-19

Abstract Teaching online physical education courses under the epidemic normalization plays a positive role in students’ physical fitness. In this paper, taking 308 college students of X Sports College as a research case, personalized recommendation of physical education online teaching courses is carried out through a user collaborative filtering recommendation algorithm based on fuzzy clustering and user interests. The model of sports skill action development is constructed based on the mountain peak model and hourglass model, and the exercise intensity of the initial exercise is modified according to the results of home exercise intensity adjustment to obtain a personalized home exercise program suitable for individuals. Finally, the effectiveness of the home exercise optimization program was verified through the analysis of teaching constraints and exercise effects. The results show that under the epidemic normality, the difference between the demonstration movements and the test results in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd optimized teaching phases is between ±5.86, which is closer to the value of each index of the demonstration movements, indicating that the optimization and adjustment scheme of the home exercise of the physical education network teaching course has good effects. This paper has reference value for universities to conduct online teaching and training of university physical education courses in the context of major public health emergencies.

Behavioral Finance Analysis of the Spillover Effect of Major Health Emergencies on Shipping and China's Investment Market

Cross-market risk conduction is an important risk source in the global investment market. In recent years, the global market risk linkage cause-d by major public health emergencies has attracted much attention. This paper selects the COVID-19 epidemic as an example, and uses the shipping market as a representative indicator of the global economy to try to analyze the complete path of the epidemic impact from the global economy to the Chinese stock market. From the perspective of behavioral finance, it analyzes the role of investor sentiment in this risk linkage. The empirical results show that the transmission of epidemic risk between Chinese stock markets deviates from the global economic fluctuations but has regularity, and the momentum effect brought by investors ' overconfidence and overreaction makes the stock market reaction short-term and volatility amplification. Risk aversion and limited attention make the market volatility caused by the deterioration of the epidemic greater than the mitigation. This paper creatively conducts a full-path study on the transmission of epidemic risk between macro-economic and stock markets, and uses behavioral finance theory to quantitatively verify the impact of investor sentiment, which provides a theoretical basis for cross-market risk transmission research.

A Novel Approach towards Assessing the Impact of Air Quality and Major Public Health Emergencies on Light Industry: A Multiscale Investigation towards Improving the Risk Prevention System

Measuring the systemic impact of major public health emergencies on the light industry and preventing various uncertain future external risks have become the key challenges to ensuring the stability of the light industry. This paper takes the occurrence of major public health emergencies as the background and focuses on environmental issues such as air pollution and indoor air quality degradation during emergencies. And to explore the multiscale impact of major public health emergencies on the light industry, typical light industry subsectors, and light industry enterprises. The findings of our study reveal that major public health emergencies have a negative impact on the light industry, particularly in the form of a short-term decline in exports, which tends to converge in the long run. Further, it is also revealed that there is heterogeneity in the impact on environmentally sensitive industries, labor-intensive industries, and others. At the microfirm level, major public health emergencies have shown a negative effect, especially the recent pandemic, which has a longer duration and a wider reach. Through multiscale research, this paper provides policy suggestions to improve the macrogovernance mechanism and risk prevention system for the light industry.

Public opinion communication mechanism of public health emergencies in Weibo: take the COVID-19 epidemic as an example.

As a major public health emergency, the COVID-19 epidemic not only has a real risk of infection, but also easily generates public opinion risks. Under the condition of social communication of microblog, how to effectively identify public opinion and the harm of public health emergencies, avoid the overlay of real risk of epidemic and network public opinion risk, and prevent and resolve major public opinion risks is an important public opinion research topic in the new era. Taking the most influential outbreak of COVID-19 pneumonia in China in 2020 as an example, this paper discusses the effect of sudden major public health cases on Chinese microblogs and the spreading mechanism of public opinion. This paper mainly explores the communication motivation of public opinion from the four communication elements of the microblog public opinion center, public opinion object, public opinion carrier and public opinion ontology. And combined with the life cycle theory, this study analyzes the interaction between the communication elements of public opinion in different stages. In the fluctuation period of public opinion, the amount of public opinion information decreases relatively, and the frequent occurrence of secondary public opinion in the outbreak period promotes the continuation of public opinion. Compared with the diversified demands of public materials and medical assistance during the pandemic, public opinion in the fluctuation period reacts on the epidemic situation, which to some extent alleviates the tension of the epidemic situation. Based on this, this study puts forward the guidance strategy of public opinion of public health emergencies.

Blockchain adoption strategies for combating deficient personal protective equipment in major public health emergencies

Blockchain adoption strategies for combating deficient personal protective equipment in major public health emergencies

The Impact of Climate Change on Older Adults’ Mental Health: A Primer for Clinicians

Climate change is a major public health emergency. Natural disasters (earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, landslides, wildfires, and volcanic eruptions) have been increasing in frequency and severity and can cause lasting psychological sequelae. Older adults are highly vulnerable to the physical and mental health impacts of extreme weather and natural disasters. A narrative review was conducted to identify and summarize English-language articles focusing on the impact of climate change on older adults’ mental health. Sixty sources were identified. This review summarizes age-specific risk factors, clinical presentations (including anxiety, depressive, posttraumatic stress symptoms, and sleep disturbances), and management of psychiatric symptoms linked to climate change in the geriatric population. Older adults are highly vulnerable and can experience multiple mental health symptoms as a result of climate change. Clinicians should be aware and educated regarding the mental health impacts of climate change on older adults, so they can best support their patients.

Innovation, advertising, personal selling, and sustainability in the industries massively benefited from major public health emergencies: paradoxical evidence from China.

While major public health emergencies have severe socio-economic impacts, they may also present many opportunities for certain industries. For these industries that have benefited significantly (e.g., China' s healthcare industry), the traditional emphasis on improving business performance through increased investment in innovation, marketing and sustainability may face contextual applicability challenges. We used the data of healthcare industry in China during Covid-19 and the methods of hierarchical regression, moderating effect test to analyze the impact of innovation, advertising, personal selling, and sustainability on healthcare firms' profitability. Three kinds of robust test including increasing the measurement range of variables, changing the data source and parameter estimation method, and Quantile regression are used. This paper finds that innovation, advertising, and environmental sustainability have significant negative impacts on profitability, while personal selling, social sustainability, and governance sustainability have significant positive impacts on profitability in the industries massively benefited from major public health emergencies. Besides, social sustainability can significantly moderate the relationship between innovation and profitability. On one hand, for companies in industries that have benefited greatly from major public health emergencies, a shift in resource allocation from innovation, advertising, and environmental sustainability to personal selling, social sustainability, and governance sustainability may be more conducive to improving their profitability. On the other hand, for public health regulatory authorities, it is necessary to strengthen the supervision of sales representatives of health care enterprises, hospitals, public health organizations, etc., and appropriately subsidize the innovation of enterprises to enhance their innovation motivation.

Psychological Health and Risk Factors of College Students within the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Students are a priority population in mental health research. This study aimed to explore the risk factors of anxiety and depression symptoms among college students in Chongqing, a megacity under the impact of COVID-19, and to provide a basis for determining the priorities of public health policies and implementing effective educational health care interventions. In this cross-sectional study conducted in Chongqing, China, the data came from web-based stratified random sampling. Anxiety and depression symptoms were measured by the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) and the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), respectively, and risk factors were analyzed by logistic regression. Data were obtained from 915 college students (34.75% were male, and 65.25% were female) with age (20.29 ± 1.51) in Chongqing, China. The prevalence rates of anxiety and depression were 19.78% and 22.62%, respectively. Logistic regression analysis revealed that the risk factors of anxiety symptoms were associated with junior years, sleep time of less than 6 h a day, influence on career planning, and depression symptoms. Comprehensive, science and engineering, and medicine disciplines, having siblings, poorer mastery of study, and anxiety symptoms were risk factors for developing depression symptoms. During the pandemic, college students experienced varying degrees of anxiety and depression. Our research findings highlight the necessity of universities and relevant departments providing precise mental health education for college students under major public health emergencies.

Problems and Transformation Measures of Urban Parks in the Post-pandemic Era

The outbreak and spread of the COVID-19 pandemic shattered peoples peaceful lives, seriously threatened human lives, and sounded an alarm for urban development and public safety and health. In resisting the pandemic, a major public health emergency, public awareness of health has also been raised to an unprecedented level. This study takes Baishamen Park in Haikou city as an example to identify the current problems of urban parks and put forward some transformation strategies based on a pandemic-related perspective. The study discovers that currently, urban parks lack detailed designs for social distance requirements and psychological healing. The infrastructures and intelligent facilities in urban parks are not complete. Urban parks also fail to appropriately deal with visitors with different attitudes toward the infection risks. Then, the study puts forward some transformation strategies and designs, such as: planting some virus-inhibiting plants, adding disinfection facilities, introducing spray disinfection robots, and designing some facilities to control social distance. These transformation measures can be helpful for urban parks to meet the new needs of peoples recreation in the post-pandemic era.

Challenges of instruments that should tackle multi-hazard and multi-risk situations: an assessment of the recent reforms of the European Solidarity Fund and the Solidarity and Emergency Aid Reserve

The European Union has some dedicated tools and mechanisms available to respond to natural hazard events including the European Union Solidarity Fund (EUSF). It follows the objective of granting financial assistance to Member States in the event of a major disaster with serious consequences. In the latest EU long-term budget plan—the Multiannual Financial Framework 2021–2027—the EUSF was merged with the Emergency Aid Reserve (EAR) to form the new Solidarity and Emergency Aid Reserve (SEAR). One additional significant change was made in 2020 which saw an extension of the scope of the EUSF. This extension allowed the EUSF to cover losses incurred due to major public health emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic. It is therefore now a multi-hazard and multi-risk financing instrument designed to financially assist during the emergency phase in case of an emergency event. We assess the consequences of these changes in the light of potential advantages as well as disadvantages compared to the prior EUSF structure. The results will be used to provide some policy recommendations as to how to move forward with the identified challenges. We especially recommend separating the EUSF from the coverage of large-scale public health emergencies and the emergencies covered by the EAR. Instead, we suggest establishing a new flexibility instrument that covers emergencies such as public health related ones as well as the ones within the EAR. The analysis gives some important insights, scientific as well as policy wise, about advantages as well as limitations of financial instruments that simultaneously should tackle different types of hazards and risks.

Psychological resilience matters in the relationship between the decline in economic status and adults' depression half a year after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The outbreak of COVID-19 in China since 2019 has had a significant impact on the mental health of people in Hubei Province during the three-year pandemic period. Therefore, studying the prevalence of depression among the population of Hubei Province since the pandemic is of great significance. Based on opportunity and stress theory, we collected provincial-level data from Hubei (N = 3,285) to examine the impact of declining economic status on depressive symptoms and to investigate the moderating effect of psychological resilience during the period of economic adjustment. We used propensity score matching to estimate the treatment effect of economic status decline on depression severity and confirmed the moderating effect of psychological resilience. We found that the more that an individual's economic status declines, the more severe that his or her depressive symptoms become. Specifically, each unit decrease in economic status is associated with an increase of approximately 0.117 units in depression level. In addition, our results indicated that psychological resilience significantly moderated the relationship between economic decline and depression (-0.184*). Our study confirms the role of economic status in depressive symptoms. Compared with traditional research on the relationship between economic status and mental illness, this paper expands the research regarding the two in the context of a major public health emergency. Furthermore, we suggest ways to improve people's mental health following the pandemic.

Prevalence of Soil-Transmitted Helminths at Baseline and after Albendazole Treatment in the School-Age Children of Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals in Bangladesh.

The forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals (FDMNs) known as Rohingya refugees are the largest group of stateless individuals globally. According to the emergencies humanitarian actors at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the worldwide refugee crisis involving FDMNs is intensifying at the fastest rate in history. Growing public health demands are being exacerbated by current difficulties in addressing poor access to health services, severe food shortages, and a lack of adequate housing. Infectious diseases constitute a major public health emergency in this vulnerable population. A study was carried out in FDMN children to investigate common soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infection at the time of enrollment and prospectively followed-up to 12 months after 2 doses albendazole treatment. At baseline, the prevalence of STH infection with at least one species was found to be 91.7% and 87.3% for Kato-Katz (KK) and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) methods, respectively. Similarly, for follow-up children, the overall infection rate was 95.3% and 91.5%, respectively. Trichuris trichiura was the most predominant STH infection by both KK (baseline 87%, follow-up 89.1%) and qPCR (baseline 77.5%, follow-up 82.9%). The overall prevalence of stunting in the children was 37.8% at baseline and rose to 51.3% at 12 months. Alpha-1 antitrypsin (r = 0.13, P = 0.01) and myeloperoxidase (r = 0.12, P = 0.01) levels showed a positive correlation with Aascaris lumbricoides egg count per gram at baseline. An in-depth investigation is urgently needed to identify the underlying protective measures and the root cause of STH infections to improve the health of FDMN children.

Self-Rated Physiological Health and Psychological Intervention among Residents during Major Public Health Emergencies

In the public health emergencies, young and inexperienced residents often face immense physiological, psychological, and social health pressures in their challenging and demanding efforts. Understanding the impact of such an emergency on the health of residents and implementing proactive psychological interventions can enhance the quality of their training. Using a Self-rated Health Measurement Scale (SRHMS), a pre-intervention measurement was conducted among all residents in our hospital. Based on the analysis of the results, targeted psychological intervention measures were implemented, followed by a post-intervention measurement. During the major public health emergencies, the overall SRHMS scores of the residents in our hospital, as well as the scores of various sub-scales, were higher than those of the general population. There was a significant positive correlation between physiological health, psychological health, and social health (P<0.01). Prior to intervention, third-year residents had lower scores compared to second-year and first-year residents, with statistically significant differences (P<0.05). Those with a history of epidemic epidemiology had lower scores, with statistically significant differences (P<0.05). Based on the total scores, there were statistically significant differences between high and low score groups (P<0.05). After psychological intervention, there were significant improvements, with scores increasing among low-score groups and residents of different years. The impact of epidemic epidemiology on residents was reduced, leading to increased scores. However, in the dimension of physiological health, there was a decrease in scores for physical condition and organ function sub-scales. During the public health emergencies, the physiological, psychological, and social health of residents were affected to a certain extent. Implementing proactive and targeted psychological interventions can contribute to the overall recovery of their health, allowing them to engage in clinical work during the epidemic in their optimal state.

Multi-objective medical supplies distribution open vehicle routing problem with fairness and timeliness under major public health emergencies

Fair and timely delivery of supplies plays a critical role under major public health emergencies. In this paper, aiming at fairness and timeliness, an optimization model of open vehicle routing problem for medical supplies distribution is established considering the urgency of the demand. We adopt a differential evolutionary algorithm with fast non-dominated solution sorting to solve the proposed model, obtaining an approximate Pareto optimal solution set. Through the comparison of algorithms, the results showed that the differential evolutionary algorithm with non-dominated sorting is superior with a shorter runtime and more diverse solutions, while the epsilon constraint method has more accurate solutions. In the case verification, the quality of the solutions of both algorithms was within the acceptable range, but the runtime of the epsilon constraint method was too long to be applicable. The results can provide theoretical suggestions and practical guidance for decision-makers in emergency supplies distribution.

Analyzing the spatiotemporal coupling relationship between public opinion and the epidemic during COVID-19

PurposeThe outbreak of COVID-19 has become a major public health emergency worldwide. How to effectively guide public opinion and implement precise prevention and control is a hot topic in current research. Mining the spatiotemporal coupling between online public opinion and offline epidemics can provide decision support for the precise management and control of future emergencies.Design/methodology/approachThis study focuses on analyzing the spatiotemporal coupling relationship between public opinion and the epidemic. First, based on Weibo information and confirmed case information, a field framework is constructed using field theory. Second, SnowNLP is used for sentiment mining and LDA is utilized for topic extraction to analyze the topic evolution and the sentiment evolution of public opinion in each coupling stage. Finally, the spatial model is used to explore the coupling relationship between public opinion and the epidemic in space.FindingsThe findings show that there is a certain coupling between online public opinion sentiment and offline epidemics, with a significant coupling relationship in the time dimension, while there is no remarkable coupling relationship in space. In addition, the core topics of public concern are different at different coupling stages.Originality/valueThis study deeply explores the spatiotemporal coupling relationship between online public opinion and offline epidemics, adding a new research perspective to related research. The result can help the government and relevant departments understand the dynamic development of epidemic events and achieve precise control while mastering the dynamics of online public opinion.

Spatial-temporal heterogeneity of global ports resilience under Pandemic: a case study of COVID-19

ABSTRACT As a major global public health emergency, the COVID-19 epidemic has had a significant impact on the development of the global port operation. Based on the data from 1 January 20191 January 2019 to 31 December 202231 December 2022, this study utilizes the global spatial autocorrelation and local spatial autocorrelation to measure and evaluate the resistance and resilience of global ports. From the outcomes, we find that the overall level of resistance and resilience for the global ports is relatively low, further have not been effectively restored and adjusted, and the resilience of ports in the world is generally heterogeneous. In addition, the impact of the epidemic on global ports is temporary, where the resilience of ports has been significantly improved after the end of 2021, and most ports have recovered from the impact of the epidemic and have a positive trend in 2022. Meanwhile, the ports have a significant positive spatial correlation in response to the effect of the COVID-19 epidemic.