Saikia Udoy, Dodd Melinda M, Chalmers James, Dasvarma Gouranga, Schech Susanne
College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia.
PLoS One. 2021 Jun 10;16(6):e0252898. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0252898. eCollection 2021.
Research efforts in the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic focused on the actual and potential impacts on societies, economies, sectors, and governments. Less attention was paid to the experiences of individuals and less still to the impact of COVID-19 on an individual's wellbeing. This research addresses this gap by utilising a holistic wellbeing framework to examine the impact of COVID-19 on the overall wellbeing of individuals in the Australian state of South Australia through an online survey. The research framework for the survey comprises six dimensions: psychological and emotional health, physical health, living standards, family and community vitality, governance, and ecological diversity and resilience. The results show that most respondents (71%) were able to maintain overall wellbeing during the pandemic. However, more than a half of the respondents could not maintain wellbeing in psychological and emotional health. Further examination of the drivers of inability to maintain overall wellbeing reveals that low-income individuals, younger respondents (aged 18-24) and women suffer disproportionate hardships. Defining poverty in terms of multi-dimensional deprivations in wellbeing enables a nuanced analysis of the unequal impacts of COVID-19 mitigation policies that can be used to improve policymaking.
在新冠疫情最初的几个月里，研究工作主要聚焦于疫情对社会、经济、各部门及政府的实际和潜在影响。对个人经历的关注较少，对新冠疫情对个人福祉影响的关注更少。本研究通过运用一个整体福祉框架，通过在线调查来考察新冠疫情对澳大利亚南澳大利亚州个人整体福祉的影响，从而填补了这一空白。该调查的研究框架包括六个维度：心理和情绪健康、身体健康、生活水平、家庭和社区活力、治理以及生态多样性和恢复力。结果显示，大多数受访者（71%）在疫情期间能够维持整体福祉。然而，超过一半的受访者在心理和情绪健康方面无法维持福祉。对无法维持整体福祉的驱动因素的进一步研究表明，低收入个人、年轻受访者（18 - 24岁）和女性遭受了不成比例的困难。从福祉的多维度匮乏角度来定义贫困，能够对新冠疫情缓解政策的不平等影响进行细致入微的分析，从而用于改进政策制定。
