Cascading disasters and mental health inequities: Winter Storm Uri, COVID-19 and post-traumatic stress in Texas.

Previous research on health effects of extreme weather has emphasized heat events even though cold-attributable mortality exceeds heat-attributable mortality worldwide. Little is known about the mental health effects of cold weather events, which often cascade to produce secondary impacts like power outages, leaving a knowledge gap in context of a changing climate. We address that gap by taking a novel "cascading disaster health inequities" approach to examine winter storm-associated post-traumatic stress (PTS) using survey data (n = 790) collected in eight Texas metro areas following Winter Storm Uri in 2021, which occurred against the backdrop of COVID-19. The incidence of storm-related PTS was 18%. Being Black (odds ratio [OR]: 6.6), Hispanic (OR: 3.5), or of another non-White race (OR: 4.2) was associated with greater odds of PTS compared to being White, which indicates substantial racial/ethnic inequities in mental health impacts (all p < 0.05). Having a disability also increased odds of PTS (OR: 4.4) (p < 0.05). Having piped water outages (OR: 1.9) and being highly impacted by COVID-19 (OR: 3.3) increased odds of PTS (both p < 0.05). When modelling how COVID-19 and outages cascaded, we compared householders to those with no outages and low COVID-19 impacts. PTS was more likely (p < 0.05) if householders had a water or power outage and high COVID-19 impacts (OR: 4.4) and if they had water and power outages and high COVID-19 impacts (OR: 7.7). Findings provide novel evidence of racial/ethnic inequities and cascading effects with regard to extreme cold events amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

A US National Study of Barriers to Science Training Experienced by Undergraduate Students during COVID-19.

Undergraduate research is a high-impact practice on college campuses. How the COVID-19 pandemic has affected undergraduate researchers' progress is poorly understood. We examine how demographics, academic characteristics, research disruptions and faculty mentorship are associated with four barriers to research progress. Data are drawn from a survey of over 1000 undergraduate student researchers across the US. We examine students who actively continued to conduct faculty-mentored research during mid-March/April 2020 (n = 485). Using generalized estimating equations that control clustering by institution, we found economic hardship, discomfort teleconferencing, lower quality mentors, sexual minority status and higher grade point averages were associated with motivation problems. Economic hardship, serious illness, Internet connection issues, a lack of face-to-face meetings and lower a frequency of mentor-mentee communication were associated with a time crunch with regard to conducting research. Discomfort teleconferencing, Internet connection issues, a lack of face-to-face meetings and decrease in research workload were associated with task uncertainty. Economic hardship, serious illness and being an engineering major were associated with lacking needed tools for the research. In sum, economic hardship was an important correlate of research barriers, as were communication challenges and sexual minority status. Results can inform practical actions by research program directors and faculty undergraduate research mentors.

Anxiety and depression among US college students engaging in undergraduate research during the COVID-19 pandemic.

OBJECTIVE: The objective was to examine mental health of undergraduate researchers (UGRs) during the COVID-19 pandemic. PARTICIPANTS: We surveyed 962 UGRs who were conducting research in Spring 2020 at over 100 US universities. METHODS: We conducted an online survey in July 2020. We analyzed data using descriptive statistics and multivariable generalized estimating equations. RESULTS: 63% reported at least mild anxiety and 73% reported at least mild depression based on GAD-7 and PHQ-9 scores; 15.2% reported severe anxiety (score ≥ 15) and 23.4% reported severe depression (score ≥ 15). More COVID-19-related adverse event experiences were associated with more severe anxiety and depression, as were first-generation status, woman gender, and LGBQ status. Greater social support was protective, and significantly more so for men (vs. women) and continuing generation (vs. first generation) students. CONCLUSION: Faculty have an important role in the mental health of their mentees. Additional interventions are needed to better support women and first-generation students.Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at.

Undergraduate researchers' graduate school intentions during COVID-19.

There is emerging literature on the disruptive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on college students, but little is known about the impacts on undergraduate researchers (UGRs). On the basis of survey data collected in Summer 2020, this paper examines how less competent mentorship and COVID-19-related difficulties shaped UGRs' graduate school intentions. Results suggest that the pandemic strengthened UGRs' graduate school intentions when UGRs experienced fewer COVID-19-related difficulties. The pandemic weakened URG's graduate school intentions when they had a less competent faculty mentor. Having a more competent postgraduate mentor had a positive effect on UGRs' graduate school intentions in response to the pandemic. Those findings indicate that higher quality postgraduate mentorship may serve as an effective surrogate for lower quality faculty mentorship. Findings suggest that immediate strategies are needed to bolster graduate school aspirations among specific groups of UGRs in response to the pandemic. UGRs of particular concern include those who were highly impacted by COVID-19 with less competent mentors, were first-generation college students, had less prior research experience, had their Summer 2020 research experiences canceled, and were social/behavioral sciences majors.