Helgeson Jennifer F, Aminpour Payam, Fung Juan F, Henriquez Alfredo Roa, Zycherman Ariela, Butry David, Nierenberg Claudia, Zhang Yating
Applied Economics Office, Engineering Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA.
Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, USA.
Int J Disaster Risk Reduct. 2022 Apr 1;72:102845. doi: 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2022.102845. Epub 2022 Feb 10.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic small businesses made headlines as hard hit by customer losses, revenue declines, and business closures. Yet, the impacts have been felt disproportionately by small businesses that suffered interruption due to pre-existing socioeconomic stressors and/or concurrent natural hazards experienced during the pandemic. To illuminate those compound impacts, we conducted a survey of over 1350 U S.-based small businesses. Our findings indicate that those businesses that experienced concurrent natural hazards during the pandemic were associated with relatively greater negative impacts. But importantly, enterprises that are historically underrepresented group operated (HUGO)-minority, women, and veteran-operated businesses- saw largely amplified negative impacts from COVID-19. In terms of the magnitude of COVID-19 impacts, the effect size of belonging to HUGO was more than twice as large as the effect size of experiencing a concurrent natural hazard during the pandemic. These results provide evidence for the disproportionate impacts that HUGOs face due to the pandemic, which are exacerbated when compounded by natural hazards. Given these results, there is evidence that the opportunity gap between HUGO and non-HUGO businesses is significant ahead of additional stressors or shocks. This opportunity gap is further accelerated when compounded with other events, here the compounding of natural hazards and COVID-19. Additional interventions need to be offered to HUGO businesses in areas with high likelihood of overlapping incidents. Further work is required to address social inequity and economic fragility of HUGO businesses, especially those that face the complexity of additional shocks, such as natural hazards.
在新冠疫情之后，小企业成为头条新闻，因为它们受到客户流失、收入下降和业务关闭的重创。然而，因疫情期间先前存在的社会经济压力因素和/或同时发生的自然灾害而遭受中断的小企业受到的影响尤其严重。为了阐明这些复合影响，我们对1350多家美国小企业进行了一项调查。我们的研究结果表明，那些在疫情期间同时遭遇自然灾害的企业受到的负面影响相对更大。但重要的是，历史上代表性不足群体经营的企业（HUGO）——少数族裔、女性和退伍军人经营的企业——受到新冠疫情的负面影响在很大程度上被放大了。就新冠疫情影响的程度而言，属于HUGO的效应量是疫情期间遭遇同时发生的自然灾害的效应量的两倍多。这些结果证明了HUGO因疫情面临的不成比例的影响，当与自然灾害叠加时，这种影响会加剧。鉴于这些结果，有证据表明，在面临更多压力因素或冲击之前，HUGO企业和非HUGO企业之间的机会差距就很大。当与其他事件叠加时，这种机会差距会进一步加速，在这里指的是自然灾害和新冠疫情的叠加。需要在重叠事件可能性高的地区为HUGO企业提供更多干预措施。需要进一步开展工作，以解决HUGO企业的社会不平等和经济脆弱性问题，尤其是那些面临自然灾害等更多冲击复杂性的企业。
