Changes in familial discussions among East Asian American families during the COVID-19 pandemic

Objective: We examined the degrees of change in familial discussions about racial issues (i.e., race, ethnicity, racism, and discrimination) due to the surge of anti-Asian discrimination during the COVID-19 pandemic.Background: Asian American family racial-ethnic socialization that teaches the values, information, and perspectives about racial-ethnic group membership and race relations carry great implications for youth development. However, little is known about how anti-Asian sentiments may have contributed to the degrees of change in racial issues.Method: The participants included 143 second-generation East Asian American youth (e.g., Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Taiwanese) ages 11-18 years (M = 14.96, SD = 1.98). Youth were attending middle (38%) or high (62%) schools in the United States.Results: Latent profile analysis identified four profiles of degrees of change in familial discussions: (a) moderate change in racial discussions about other ethnicities, (b) much change in racial discussions, (c) moderate change in racial discussions about own ethnicities, and (d) little change in racial discussions.Conclusion: Our findings provide a snapshot of the ways East Asian American families' racial discussions are changing, which in turn shape youth's experiences in navigating their social contexts.Implications: The findings provide valuable directions for research and interventions to promote important racial discussion among East Asian American families.

Preparing for the Future Crisis: Frontier Technologies Hold the Key

The hard lesson learnt from the COVID-19 pandemic is lack of understanding the risk and preparedness for response which resulted in millions of losses of lives and unprecedented cascading effects. This chapter analyzes how frontier technologies are supporting the key stakeholders to manage the COVID-19 crises—protect lives, livelihoods, and enhance the quality of risk governance in Asia and the Pacific. This chapter addresses five key lessons emerging from the COVID-19 response: (1) making risk assessment more dynamics, (2) empowering at risk communities, (3) managing a global risk with local action, (4) managing uncertainties, and (5) bridging the gaps in knowledge and understanding in systemic risks. This chapter also outlines three key enablers—frontier technologies, data science, and national innovation systems that help to prepare for the future crises. The nature and scale of risk has changed. In our increasingly complex inter-connected world, managing risk forms the key to preparing for the future. Smart preparedness is the way forward. Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data, Machine Learning, 5G technologies, drones, automated vehicles, robotics, etc., were used to track, monitor, warn, and support logistics as well as its rapid diagnostic and telemedicine. A wide-range of risk analytics such as impact forecasting and risk informed early warning, indexing and creating risk matrix to target at risk communities which have been developed and put to use in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its intersection with extreme climate events. Digital solutions can help enhanced preparedness to protect at risk communities but also strengthen their resilience. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer 2022.

Severing the Belt and Road: Overseas Chinese Networks and COVID-19 Travel Restrictions

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments around the world have imposed a wide variety of entry restrictions on international travel. Historical cases illustrate that public health concerns based on entrenched prejudices toward immigrant communities have led to restrictive measures against migration from foreign countries. Using our new dataset, COVID-19 Travel Restrictions and Categories, we examine whether Chinese migrant networks around the world have driven government decisions to bar the entry of Chinese nationals and travelers from China in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our survival analysis of China-specific travel restrictions from January to March 2020 shows that not all Chinese migrant networks were important determinants. We find that entry bans on travel from China emerged more quickly in countries where a large number of temporary Chinese migrants work in clustered sites of Chinese contracted projects.

Exploring virtual race participants’ perceptions of event mobile apps and behavioral intention: The stimulus-organism-response approach

As COVID-19 compels the event industry to embrace a digital transformation with innovative and safer ways of organizing events, investigating event attendees’ emotional responses and behavioral intention toward virtual sporting events becomes extremely important for event stakeholders. However, there is little empirical research on what factors lead to event participants’ hedonic benefit, which is a crucial determinant of satisfaction and revisit intention in the context of virtual sporting events. Based on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) model, this study therefore develops and examines a conceptually comprehensive model on the interrelationship between mobile app attributes, hedonic benefit, satisfaction with event experience, and revisit intention in the context of a virtual race event. Results identified user interface attractiveness and perceived usefulness as significant determinants of hedonic benefit which, in turn, affect satisfaction with event experience and revisit intention. Further, the results revealed that hedonic benefit mediates the relationships. The findings of this study provide significant theoretical and managerial implications for both researchers and practitioners who are interested in the use of mobile apps in virtual race events. © 2022 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

COVID-19 susceptibility and clinical outcomes in autoimmune inflammatory rheumatic diseases (AIRDs): a systematic review and meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE: This meta-analysis aims to assess the susceptibility to and clinical outcomes of COVID-19 in autoimmune inflammatory rheumatic disease (AIRD) and following AIRD drug use. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We included observational and case-controlled studies assessing susceptibility and clinical outcomes of COVID-19 in patients with AIRD as well as the clinical outcomes of COVID-19 with or without use of steroids and conventional synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (csDMARDs). RESULTS: Meta-analysis including three studies showed that patients with AIRD are not more susceptible to COVID-19 compared to patients without AIRD or the general population (OR: 1.11, 95% CI: 0.58 to 2.14). Incidence of severe outcomes of COVID-19 (OR: 1.34, 95% CI: 0.76 to 2.35) and COVID-19 related death (OR: 1.21, 95% CI: 0.68 to 2.16) also did not show significant difference. The clinical outcomes of COVID-19 among AIRD patients with and without csDMARD or steroid showed that both use of steroid (OR: 1.69, 95% CI: 0.96 to 2.98) or csDMARD (OR: 1.35, 95% CI: 0.63 to 3.08) had no effect on clinical outcomes of COVID-19. CONCLUSIONS: AIRD does not increase susceptibility to COVID-19, not affecting the clinical outcome of COVID-19. Similarly, the use of steroids or csDMARDs for AIRD does not worsen the clinical outcome.

Risk factors of COVID-19 mortality: a systematic review of current literature and lessons from recent retracted articles.

OBJECTIVE: Recently, two influential articles that reported the association of (hydroxy)chloroquine or angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) mortality were retracted due to significant methodological issues. Therefore, we aimed to analyze the same clinical issues through an improved research method and to find out the differences from the retracted papers. We systematically reviewed pre-existing literature, and compared the results with those of the retracted papers to gain a novel insight. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We extracted common risk factors identified in two retracted papers, and conducted relevant publication search until June 26, 2020 in PubMed. Then, we analyzed the risk factors for COVID-19 mortality and compared them to those of the retracted papers. RESULTS: Our systematic review demonstrated that most demographic and clinical risk factors for COVID-19 mortality were similar to those of the retracted papers. However, while the retracted paper indicated that both (hydroxy)chloroquine monotherapy and combination therapy with macrolide were associated with higher risk of mortality, our study showed that only combination therapy of hydroxychloroquine and macrolide was associated with higher risk of mortality (odds ratio 2.33; 95% confidence interval 1.63-3.34). In addition, our study demonstrated that use of ACE inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) was associated with reduced risk of mortality (0.77; 0.65-0.91). CONCLUSIONS: When analyzing the same clinical issues with the two retracted papers through a systematic review of randomized controlled trials and relevant cohort studies, we found out that (hydroxy)chloroquine monotherapy was not associated with higher risk of mortality, and that the use of ACE inhibitors or ARBs was associated with reduced risk of mortality in COVID-19 patients.