College of Natural Sciences, Forestry, and Agriculture, University of Maine, Orono, ME, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2024 Apr 9;19(4):e0299841. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0299841. eCollection 2024.
When COVID-19 was first introduced to the United States, state and local governments enacted a variety of policies intended to mitigate the virulence of the epidemic. At the time, the most effective measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 included stay-at-home orders, closing of nonessential businesses, and mask mandates. Although it was well known that regions with high population density and cold climates were at the highest risk for disease spread, rural counties that are economically reliant on tourism were incentivized to enact fewer precautions against COVID-19. The uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, the multiple policies to reduce transmission, and the changes in outdoor recreation behavior had a significant impact on rural tourism destinations and management of protected spaces. We utilize fine-scale incidence and demographic data to study the relationship between local economic and political concerns, COVID-19 mitigation measures, and the subsequent severity of outbreaks throughout the continental United States. We also present results from an online survey that measured travel behavior, health risk perceptions, knowledge and experience with COVID-19, and evaluation of destination attributes by 407 out-of-state visitors who traveled to Maine from 2020 to 2021. We synthesize this research to present a narrative on how perceptions of COVID-19 risk and public perceptions of rural tourism put certain communities at greater risk of illness throughout 2020. This research could inform future rural destination management and public health policies to help reduce negative socioeconomic, health and environmental impacts of pandemic-derived changes in travel and outdoor recreation behavior.
当 COVID-19 首次传入美国时，州和地方政府颁布了各种旨在减轻疫情严重程度的政策。当时，预防 COVID-19 传播最有效的措施包括居家令、关闭非必要企业和强制佩戴口罩。尽管众所周知人口密度高和气候寒冷的地区疾病传播风险最高，但经济依赖旅游业的农村县被激励采取更少的 COVID-19 预防措施。COVID-19 大流行的不确定性、减少传播的多种政策以及户外休闲行为的变化，对农村旅游目的地和保护区的管理产生了重大影响。我们利用细粒度的发病率和人口数据，研究了当地经济和政治关注、COVID-19 缓解措施与美国大陆随后疫情严重程度之间的关系。我们还展示了一项在线调查的结果，该调查通过 407 名从 2020 年到 2021 年从美国其他州前往缅因州的游客，测量了旅行行为、对健康风险的认知、对 COVID-19 的了解和经验，以及对目的地属性的评价。我们综合了这些研究，提出了一个关于 COVID-19 风险认知和公众对农村旅游看法如何使某些社区在 2020 年面临更大疾病风险的叙述。这项研究可以为未来的农村目的地管理和公共卫生政策提供信息，以帮助减轻大流行导致的旅行和户外休闲行为变化对社会经济、健康和环境的负面影响。
