Center for Health Policy & Health Services Research, Henry Ford Health, One Ford Place, Detroit, MI 48202, USA.
Department of Mental Health, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, 624N. Broadway, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.
Behav Processes. 2022 Aug;200:104668. doi: 10.1016/j.beproc.2022.104668. Epub 2022 Jun 3.
Socially vulnerable individuals, including those with greater exposure to adversity and social instability, are at greater risk for a variety of negative outcomes following exposure to public health crises. One hypothesized mechanism linking social vulnerability to poor health outcomes is delay discounting, the behavioral tendency to select smaller immediately available rewards relative to larger delayed rewards. However, little research has examined the impact of real-world disease outbreaks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, on the relation between social vulnerability and delay discounting. This study examined whether the severity of COVID-19 impact moderated the association between social vulnerability and delay discounting in a diverse sample of 72 human adults (M = 42.4; 69% Black; 87% female) drawn from two low-resource urban areas. Contrary to hypotheses, results indicated that exposure to more severe COVID-19 impacts did not affect decision making among individuals with higher levels of social vulnerability. Conversely, findings suggest that individuals with lower levels of social vulnerability who reported more significant impacts of COVID-19 evidenced a greater tendency to select larger, delayed rewards relative to individuals with greater social vulnerability. Findings suggest the recent pandemic may influence the relation between social vulnerability and behavioral processes underlying health decision-making.
社会弱势群体，包括那些面临更多逆境和社会不稳定因素的人，在暴露于公共卫生危机后，更容易出现各种负面后果。一种假设的将社会脆弱性与健康不良结果联系起来的机制是延迟折扣，即相对于更大的延迟奖励，人们更倾向于选择较小的即时可得奖励的行为倾向。然而，很少有研究探讨现实世界中的疾病爆发，如 COVID-19 大流行，对社会脆弱性和延迟折扣之间关系的影响。本研究在来自两个资源匮乏的城市地区的 72 名不同的成年人类样本（M=42.4；69%为黑人；87%为女性）中，检验了 COVID-19 影响的严重程度是否调节了社会脆弱性与延迟折扣之间的关联。与假设相反，结果表明，暴露于更严重的 COVID-19 影响并没有影响社会脆弱性水平较高的个体的决策。相反，研究结果表明，报告 COVID-19 影响更显著的社会脆弱性水平较低的个体相对于社会脆弱性水平较高的个体，更倾向于选择更大的延迟奖励。研究结果表明，最近的大流行可能会影响社会脆弱性与健康决策背后的行为过程之间的关系。
