Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America.
Division of Cardiology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2024 Feb 8;19(2):e0296851. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0296851. eCollection 2024.
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) of unprecedented scope and duration were implemented to limit community spread of COVID-19. There remains limited evidence about how these measures impacted the lived experience of affected communities. This study captured the early impacts and coping strategies implemented in King County, Washington, one of the first U.S. communities impacted by COVID-19.
We conducted a cross-sectional web-based survey of 793 English- and Spanish-speaking adult King County residents from March 18, 2020 -May 30, 2020, using voluntary response sampling. The survey included close- and open-ended questions on participant demographics, wellbeing, protective actions, and COVID-19-related concerns, including a freeform narrative response to describe the pandemic's individual-, family- and community-level impacts and associated coping strategies. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze close-ended questions, and qualitative content analysis methods were used to analyze free-form narrative responses.
The median age of participants was 45 years old, and 74% were female, 82% were White, and 6% were Hispanic/Latinx; 474 (60%) provided a qualitative narrative. Quantitative findings demonstrated that higher percentages of participants engaged in most types of COVID-19 protective behaviors after the stay-at-home order was implemented and schools and community spaces were closed, relative to before, and that participants tended to report greater concern about the pandemic's physical health or healthcare access impacts than the financial or social impacts. Qualitative data analysis described employment or financial impacts (56%) and vitality coping strategies (65%), intended to support health or positive functioning.
This study documented early impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the NPIs implemented in response, as well as strategies employed to cope with those impacts, which can inform early-stage policy formation and intervention strategies to mitigate the negative impacts. Future research should explore the endurance and evolution of the early impacts and coping strategies throughout the multiyear pandemic.
在 COVID-19 大流行初期，实施了前所未有的范围和持续时间的非药物干预（NPIs）来限制 COVID-19 在社区中的传播。关于这些措施如何影响受影响社区的生活体验，仍缺乏有限的证据。本研究记录了 COVID-19 在美国首批受影响社区之一华盛顿州金县实施的早期影响和应对策略。
我们于 2020 年 3 月 18 日至 2020 年 5 月 30 日期间，使用自愿反应抽样，对金县 793 名讲英语和西班牙语的成年居民进行了一项横断面在线调查。该调查包括参与者人口统计学、幸福感、保护措施以及与 COVID-19 相关的关注的封闭和开放式问题，包括一个自由格式的叙述，以描述大流行对个人、家庭和社区层面的影响以及相关的应对策略。使用描述性统计来分析封闭问题，使用定性内容分析方法来分析自由格式的叙述性回答。
参与者的中位数年龄为 45 岁，74%为女性，82%为白人，6%为西班牙裔/拉丁裔；474 名（60%）提供了定性叙述。定量发现表明，与实施居家令和关闭学校和社区空间之前相比，在居家令实施后，更多的参与者参与了大多数类型的 COVID-19 保护行为，而且参与者倾向于报告更多的担忧大流行对健康或医疗保健获取的影响，而不是对财务或社会的影响。定性数据分析描述了就业或财务影响（56%）和活力应对策略（65%），旨在支持健康或积极的功能。
本研究记录了 COVID-19 大流行的早期影响以及为应对这些影响而实施的非药物干预措施，以及为应对这些影响而采用的策略，这可以为早期政策制定和干预策略提供信息，以减轻负面影响。未来的研究应该探讨整个多年大流行期间早期影响和应对策略的持久性和演变。
