Yang Anni, Yang Jue, Yang Di, Xu Rongting, He Yaqian, Aragon Amanda, Qiu Han
Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability University of Oklahoma Norman OK USA.
Department of Geography University of Georgia Athens GA USA.
Geohealth. 2021 Dec 1;5(12):e2021GH000494. doi: 10.1029/2021GH000494. eCollection 2021 Dec.
In 2020, people's health suffered a great crisis under the dual effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the extensive, severe wildfires in the western and central United States. Parks, including city, national, and cultural parks, offer a unique opportunity for people to maintain their recreation behaviors following the social distancing protocols during the pandemic. However, massive forest wildfires in western and central US, producing harmful toxic gases and smoke, pose significant threats to human health and affect their recreation behaviors and mobility to parks. In this study, we employed the geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR) Models to investigate how COVID-19 and wildfires jointly shaped human mobility to parks, regarding the number of visits per capita, dwell time, and travel distance to parks, during June - September 2020. We detected strong correlations between visitations and COVID-19 incidence in southern Montana, western Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah before August. However, the pattern was weakened over time, indicating the decreasing trend of the degree of concern regarding the pandemic. Moreover, more park visits and lower dwell time were found in parks further away from wildfires and less air pollution in Washington, Oregon, California, Colorado, and New Mexico, during the wildfire season, suggesting the potential avoidance of wildfires when visiting parks. This study provides important insights on people's responses in recreation and social behaviors when facing multiple severe crises that impact their health and wellbeing, which could support the preparation and mitigation of the health impacts from future pandemics and natural hazards.
2020年，在新冠疫情以及美国中西部地区大规模严重野火的双重影响下，人们的健康遭受了巨大危机。公园，包括城市公园、国家公园和文化公园，为人们在疫情期间遵循社交距离规定保持娱乐行为提供了独特机会。然而，美国中西部地区的大规模森林野火产生有害有毒气体和烟雾，对人类健康构成重大威胁，并影响人们前往公园的娱乐行为和出行。在本研究中，我们运用地理和时间加权回归（GTWR）模型，调查在2020年6月至9月期间，新冠疫情和野火如何共同影响人们前往公园的出行情况，具体涉及人均参观次数、停留时间以及前往公园的旅行距离。我们发现，在8月之前，蒙大拿州南部、怀俄明州西部、科罗拉多州和犹他州的公园参观量与新冠疫情发病率之间存在很强的相关性。然而，随着时间推移，这种模式有所减弱，表明人们对疫情的关注程度呈下降趋势。此外，在野火季节，华盛顿州、俄勒冈州、加利福尼亚州、科罗拉多州和新墨西哥州距离野火较远且空气污染较少的公园，游客更多但停留时间更短，这表明人们在前往公园时可能会避开野火。本研究为人们在面对影响其健康和福祉的多重严重危机时在娱乐和社会行为方面的反应提供了重要见解，可为未来应对疫情和自然灾害对健康的影响做好准备并减轻其影响提供支持。
