False Beliefs and Attitude Are Barriers to COVID-19 Vaccination.

As of October 2021, Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) volunteers donated over 2 million h to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The Health Belief Model (HBM) is used to understand the value a person places on preventative behavior against the risk of disease. A mixed method, unmatched, prospective case-control study was conducted regarding volunteers' experience during the pandemic, reasons why these highly trained persons volunteer, what barriers to vaccination they observed, and how they helped others overcome those barriers. The HBM can elucidate the cognitive process to vaccinate. Regression analysis found a person's attitude (which includes beliefs, peer pressure, preconceptions, unwillingness, and other indicators) is a barrier to vaccination. Service hours increased from 20 to 56 h among volunteers who saw attitude as a barrier to vaccination. Superstition and fear accounted for 99.8% of unvaccinated persons (P < 0.001). Fear was a barrier to protective health behavior. The public health system must do better to build trust as an ongoing endeavor, as even the increased service volunteers provided in response to the observed attitudes, was not enough to stem exponential transmission once the pandemic had begun. Policy-makers and the public health authority should take all necessary steps early in the pandemic to ensure the effectiveness of the vaccination program.

Pandemic Isolation and Mental Health Among Children.

OBJECTIVE: Mental health issues increased during the COVID - 19 pandemic, especially among children. Our past research efforts found that surveillance data can address a variety of health concerns; that personal psychological awareness impacted ability to cope, and mental health outcomes were improved when survivors were triaged to mental health countermeasures. To build upon our public health efforts, we wanted to see if increased screen time due to remote learning caused by the pandemic influenced school aged children's mental health. METHODS: With the hypothesis that excessive time spent isolated during remote learning increased the amount of mental health events in children, we conducted a public health surveillance project on actual diagnoses rather than just symptoms, controlling for historical mental health and emotional disorders. RESULTS: The entire cohort of children aged 6 to 17 years were studied over time before and during the pandemic for their medically diagnosed mental health and emotional outcomes by the amount of pandemic induced social isolation. CONCLUSIONS: After controlling for historical diagnoses and the rate of COVID - 19, the effect of pandemic - induced social isolation had a linear increase on the amount of anxiety, resulting in a 4-fold increase in pandemic social isolation - induced anxiety.