COVID-19 and Food Insecurity in Latin America and the Caribbean

The objective was to determine the prevalence of household food insecurity (FI) in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Secondary analysis was performed using the waves 1 to 3 of the 2020 COVID-19 High Frequency Phone Surveys in 13 LAC countries. The countries with the highest FI in the first wave were Honduras (60.3%), Peru (58.1%) and Ecuador (57.9%). Likewise, the countries with the greatest differences in the prevalence of FI between the first and last waves in percentage points (PP) were Peru (-29), Guatemala (-27.7) and Bolivia (-21.8). LAC countries face a great burden of FI.Copyright © 2022 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Global Communications Newsletter Conferenc Report

From November 30 to December 02 2022, the IEEE Latin-American Conference on Communications (LATINCOM) returned to Brazil for its fourteenth edition. LATINCOM was held in the wonderful city of Rio de Janeiro, which had the privilege to offer attendees all its fantastic beauties comprising landscapes with a series of green mountains cascading down to the coast. LATINCOM's journey to Rio de Janeiro started in Medellín, Colombia, in 2009, Bogotá, also in Colombia, in 2010. It first appeared in Brazil, Belém, in 2011. Then it moved to Cuenca, Ecuador, in 2012, Santiago, Chile, in 2013, Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, in 2014, Arequipa, Peru, in 2015, Medellin, Colombia, in 2016, Guatemala City, Guatemala, in 2017, and Guadalajara, Mexico, in 2018. LATINCOM was held for a second time in Brazil, in Salvador, 2019. The conference was forced to go online in 2019, hybrid in 2021, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and then finally returning to the face-to-face format in 2022, in Rio de Janeiro. This brought to the 14th edition a remarkable characteristic, as it represented the return to in-presence conferences after the Covid-19 outbreak. LATIN-COM is held annually and attracts submissions and participants from around the globe. In 2022, the program was organized in three intensive days, including four keynote speeches, four tutorials, two workshops, and 16 technical sessions.

[Mental health of Guatemalan health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic: baseline findings from the HEROES cohort studySaúde mental dos trabalhadores da saúde guatemaltecos durante a pandemia de COVID-19: constatações basais do estudo da coorte HEROES]. / La salud mental de los trabajadores de salud en Guatemala durante la pandemia de COVID-19: resultados de base del estudio de cohortes HÉROES.

Objectives: To assess the baseline prevalence of mental health conditions and associated exposures in a cohort of health care workers (HCWs) in Guatemala. Methods: We analyzed baseline information from the 2020 Web-based COVID-19 Health Care Workers Study (HEROES)-Guatemala. Outcomes included mental distress and depressive symptoms. Exposures included COVID-19 experiences, sociodemographic characteristics, and job characteristics. We used crude and adjusted Poisson regression models in our analyses. Results: Of the 1801 HCWs who accepted to participate, 1522 (84.5%) completed the questionnaire; 1014 (66.8%) were women. Among the participants, 59.1% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 56.6, 61.5) screened positive for mental distress and 23% (95% CI = 20.9, 25.2) for moderate to severe depressive symptoms. COVID-19 experiences, sociodemographic characteristics, and job characteristics were associated with the study outcomes. Participants who were worried about COVID-19 infection were at higher risk of mental distress (relative risk [RR] = 1.47; 95% CI = 1.30, 1.66) and depressive symptoms (RR = 1.51; 95% CI = 1.17, 1.96). Similarly, the youngest participants were at elevated risk of mental distress (RR = 1.80; 95% CI = 1.24, 2.63) and depressive symptoms (OR = 4.58; 95% CI = 1.51, 13.87). Conclusions: Mental health conditions are highly prevalent among Guatemalan.

Objetivos: Avaliar a prevalência basal de condições de saúde mental e exposições associadas em uma coorte de trabalhadores da saúde (TS) na Guatemala. Métodos: Analisamos as informações da linha de base do estudo on-line sobre trabalhadores da saúde e a COVID-19 (HEROES), realizado em 2020 na Guatemala. Os desfechos incluíram angústia debilitante e sintomas de depressão. As exposições incluíram experiências com a COVID-19, características sociodemográficas e características do trabalho. Usamos em nossas análises modelos de regressão bruta e ajustada de Poisson. Resultados: Dos 1801 TS que concordaram em participar, 1522 (84,5%) preencheram o questionário, sendo que 1014 (66,8%) eram mulheres. Dentre esses participantes, 59,1% (intervalo de confiança [IC] de 95%=56,6; 61,5) apresentaram resultado positivo na triagem de angústia debilitante e 23% (IC 95%=20,9, 25,2) apresentaram resultado positivo para sintomas de depressão moderados a graves. Experiências com COVID-19, e características sociodemográficas e de trabalho apresentaram associação com os resultados do estudo. Os participantes que estavam preocupados com infecção por COVID-19 apresentaram maior risco de angústia debilitante (risco relativo [RR]=1,47; IC95%=1,30; 1,66) e sintomas de depressão (RR=1,51; IC 95% =1,17; 1,96). Da mesma maneira, os participantes mais jovens apresentaram alto risco de apresentarem angústia debilitante (RR=1,80; IC 95%=1,24; 2,63) e sintomas de depressão (OR=4,58; IC 95%=1,51; 13,87). Conclusões: Condições de saúde mental são altamente prevalentes entre os guatemaltecos.

Dermatological manifestations associated with the severity of COVID-19 infection: A retrospective cross-sectional observational study in 144 patients

Introduction: COVID-19 infection is a disease caused by the type 2 coronavirus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV-2) that affects the respiratory mucosa and all those organs that present the type 2 angiotensin receptor (ACE2), within them the skin. Several authors have mentioned the importance of reporting and carrying out databases on skin lesions caused by this virus, since it is related to the detection, severity and prognosis of the systemic condition. Material(s) and Method(s): A retrospective cross-sectional observational study was carried out on the cases of patients who presented dermatological manifestations due to COVID-19, registered in the physical database of the National Specialized Hospital of Villa Nueva, Guatemala, from January 1st to December 31, 2021. Result(s): A total of 144 patients presented dermatological manifestations due to COVID-19, which were: acral lesions (42%), rash (21%), subcutaneous emphysema (12%), oral mucosal lesions (7%), necrosis (6%), erythema multiforme (5%), telogen effluvium (2%), vesicular lesions (2%), urticaria (1%), pityriasis rosea Gibert (1%) and livedo-type lesion (1%). A statistically significant association (p = 0,00) was found in patients who presented dermatological manifestations with vasculonecrotic damage as they were more likely to suffer from severe to critical disease (OR 2,91;95% CI 1063-3083). Conclusion(s): Early identification of cutaneous semiology is essential for timely management of complications associated with COVID-19 disease.Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Espana, S.L.U.

Empty Streets

This visual essay invites renewed reflection on the iconography of the people. In the spring of 2020, Guatemala's President Alejandro Giammattei prohibited citizens from leaving their homes to help contain the spread of the novel coronavirus known as Covid-19. Doing little to manage the spread of the virus, these curfew events gave new aesthetic and political meaning to a familiar visual genre: photographs of empty streets. For more than a century, and especially in the summer of 2020, images of crowds and mass protests have provided both governments on the one hand, and protesting multitudes on the other with an aesthetic representation of the people. But this interest in collective assemblies has tended to engage only one side of the equation. To fully appreciate the visual power of the people, it is also necessary to understand those images from which people are strikingly absent.

Continuity of Latin American crises and struggles in times of pandemic

After numerous mobilizations during 2019, the health crisis at the beginning of 2020 led to the implementation of multiple restrictive measures, limiting or prohibiting travel and gatherings in the public space in several Latin American countries. The severity of these measures and the choice of designating armed actors for their enforcement suggest that social and political struggles have come to a halt. Based on Chilean, Guatemalan and Venezuelan cases, selected for their great disparities, this paper argues that the health situation plays only a marginal role in the evolution of mobilization dynamics. More broadly, the pandemic does not seem to imply any fundamental upheaval in the evolution of social movements. © 2022 Institut des Hautes Etudes de l'Amerique Latine (IHEAL). All rights reserved.

Sociodemographic Factors Associated with COVID-19 Vaccination among People in Guatemalan Municipalities.

The Republic of Guatemala's reported COVID-19 vaccination coverage is among the lowest in the Americas and there are limited studies describing the disparities in vaccine uptake within the country. We performed a cross-sectional ecological analysis using multi-level modeling to identify sociodemographic characteristics that were associated with low COVID-19 vaccination coverage among Guatemalan municipalities as of 30 November 2022. Municipalities with a higher proportion of people experiencing poverty (ß = -0.25, 95% CI: -0.43--0.07) had lower vaccination coverage. Municipalities with a higher proportion of people who had received at least a primary education (ß = 0.74, 95% CI: 0.38-1.08), children (ß = 1.07, 95% CI: 0.36-1.77), people aged 60 years and older (ß = 2.94, 95% CI: 1.70-4.12), and testing for SARS-CoV-2 infection (ß = 0.25, 95% CI: 0.14-0.36) had higher vaccination coverage. In the simplified multivariable model, these factors explained 59.4% of the variation in COVID-19 vaccination coverage. Poverty remained significantly associated with low COVID-19 vaccination coverage in two subanalyses restricting the data to the time period of the highest national COVID-19-related death rate and to COVID-19 vaccination coverage only among those aged 60 years or older. Poverty is a key factor associated with low COVID-19 vaccination and focusing public health interventions in municipalities most affected by poverty may help address COVID-19 vaccination and health disparities in Guatemala.

Economic nationalisms in a world on fire: An introduction

In a time when many national governments are rhetorically, if not practically, turning away from global collaboration and emphasizing economic nationalisms, understood here as a plurality of historically and politically contextualized policies, the authors in this thematic issue explore the possible contributions of comparative ethnographic analyses of economic nationalisms to interdisciplinary, transnational analyses. In this introduction to the thematic section, the editors note the turn to economic nationalisms in the current context of global crises, review the literature on economic nationalisms, and illustrate the strong political and historical variations in economic nationalisms within even the same nation, using India as an example. The three ethnographic articles in this thematic section are discussed in relation to each other. They offer examples from Turkey, Italy, Guatemala and the U.S., with a shared focus on economic nationalisms and the reliance on the labor of transnational migrants displaced by war, land grabs, and climate change even as those vital contributors to national economies are denied cultural and national citizenship – an irony rendered all the more visible during the COVID-19 pandemic.Alternate : In un momento in cui molti governi nazionali si allontanano a livello retorico, se non pratico, da una collaborazione globale ed esaltano i nazionalismi economici, intesi qui come una pluralità di politiche storicamente e politicamente contestualizzate, gli autori di questo numero tematico indagano sui possibili contributi delle analisi etnografiche comparate dei nazionalismi economici alle analisi interdisciplinari e transnazionali. In questa introduzione alla sezione tematica, i curatori rilevano la svolta verso i nazionalismi economici nell'attuale contesto di crisi globale, passano in rassegna la letteratura sui nazionalismi economici e illustrano le profonde variazioni politiche e storiche dei nazionalismi economici anche all'interno della stessa nazione, utilizzando come esempio il caso indiano. Vengono discussi, uno in rapporto all'altro, i tre articoli etnografici che compongono la sezione tematica e che offrono esempi dalla Turchia, dall'Italia, dal Guatemala e dagli Stati Uniti, con un'attenzione comune ai nazionalismi economici e alla dipendenza dal lavoro dei migranti transnazionali sfollati a causa di guerre, espropriazioni di terre e cambiamenti climatici, nonostante a questi soggetti, che contribuiscono in modo vitale alle economie nazionali, venga negata la cittadinanza culturale e nazionale – un'ironia divenuta ancora più visibile durante la pandemia da COVID-19.

Are societies in conflict more susceptible to believe in COVID-19 conspiracy theories? A 66 nation study

Conspiracy theories widely influence our social and political lives. A recent example is the broad impact such theories had on government's efforts to halt the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. In that context, public's compliance and willingness to get vaccinated was found to be substantially and negatively affected by the belief in conspiracy theories, among various factors. In the present study, we tested whether some countries are more susceptible to conspiracy theories than others. We examined, for the first time, the idea that the degree of intensity of conflict predicts the degree of belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories. A multilevel analysis across 66 countries (N = 46,450) demonstrated that people living in countries with higher conflict intensity tended to be more susceptible to COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs. These findings are the first large-scale comparative evidence of the profound psychological effects of conflicts on the involved societies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved) Impact Statement The belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories has severe implications on public's health. Thus, it is important to better understand the reasons behind such beliefs. The present study provides new information which helps to better understand the contexts in which conspiracy belief thrive. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Tasty and waste-free food: the alternative for improving the use of public resources in school feeding programmes in Latin America and the Caribbean

This article, authored by Dulclair Sternadt, Juan Pablo Mellado, Gabriela Rivas-Mari..o, and Daniela Moyano, explored the inclusion of gastronomy in School Feeding Programmes (PAE) in Latin America and the Caribbean as a means of enhancing programme efficiency. The article presented case studies from Chile, Colombia, and Guatemala to guide other countries in the region on how to incorporate gastronomy into their own PAE. These inputs, and their outstanding results - increased acceptance of school menus in the three countries and a decrease in food waste of around 20% in Chile and Colombia - are clear evidence for other countries to include gastronomy in their SFP as a powerful strategy capable of contributing to the optimisation of public resources invested in these programmes. Furthermore, in light of the current COVID-19 pandemic, the article also included a food safety guide that outlined practices to ensure the safe delivery of food to students during the reopening of schools. The guide was divided into 3 sections, which covered planning for reopening, implementation of food safety principles to minimize the spread of COVID-19, and monitoring and follow-up during reopening. This article provide valuable insights and evidence-based recommendations to support the continued provision of food to students in the face of the pandemic.

Vulnerabilities and Collective Care: Indigenous Guatemalan and Mexican Farmworkers in Diaspora Confronting COVID-19 in the Western United States

This article contributes to scholarly and policy conversations about diasporic Indigenous peoples from Mexico and Guatemala and forms of discrimination, through lack of attention to language and culture, that result in differential health and economic outcomes for Indigenous workers. In tandem, it emphasizes the ways that Indigenous farmworkers attempt to compensate for this discrimination by establishing forms of community care: emotional support, mutual aid of many kinds, and the integration of care work into daily life. I conceptualize Indigenous farmworkers as integral parts of families and communities built on relational connections and circuits of care linked across many borders. This article is based primarily on quantitative and qualitative findings from the Oregon COVID-19 Farmworkers Study (COFS), which included surveys with three hundred farmworkers, qualitative interviews with forty-eight of them, and identified twenty-nine Mesoamerican languages in Oregon. © 2023 by The Regents of the University of California.

Special Issue: Emergency preparedness in the Americas. (Special Issue: Emergency preparedness in the Americas.)

This special issue includes 11 articles that discuss digital transformation for more equitable and sustainable public health in the age of digital interdependence;contributions of the new framework for essential public health functions to addressing the COVID-19 pandemic;cancer care access in Chile's vulnerable populations during the COVID-19 pandemic;emergency preparedness;mental health of Guatemalan health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic;main contributor to inequalities in COVID-19 mortality in Colombia.

The effects of remote learning on slife students from Central America during the COVID-19 pandemic

The Covid pandemic caused changes in education of which we may never know or understand all its repercussions to the public education system. One group of vulnerable students, newcomers from Guatemala and Honduras with limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFE), were negatively affected. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, one SLIFE program sent its students home in the spring of 2020 to quarantine and did not return to in-person learning again until a year later. The purpose of this quantitative, causal comparative study is to investigate the effects of remote learning during the Covid-19 pandemic on SLIFE students' education while attending an urban school's SLIFE program for adolescents in southwest Ohio. The research was a longitudinal design using dependent or paired-samples t tests, comparing SLIFE students' English and mathematics end of semester grades during face-to-face learning in the first semester of the 2019-2020 school year versus the same SLIFE students' English and mathematics end of semester grades during remote learning in the first semester of the 2020-2021 school year. A statistically significant difference was found between school years, confirming a decline in SLIFE student achievement while learning remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusions and recommendations for future research and practices are included. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

The unintended consequences of confinement: Evidence from the rural area in Guatemala

Individual and social preferences have shown to be important factors in individual decision making and general economic performance. Yet, they are usually assumed as given and stable, underestimating their impact in the rhythm of economic recovery after a natural disaster or pandemic. This paper examines the effects of COVID-19 initial confinement on households' individual and social preferences across small communities in the rural area of Guatemala. We use a comprehensive panel household survey of agricultural smallholders collected during two survey rounds in 2019, prior to the pandemic, and 2020 and find that preferences generally shifted following the onset of the pandemic. We observe a significant increase in risk tolerance, deteriorated perceptions towards trust and generosity, and a higher frequency of emotional issues, while intra-household relationships remain stable. We find that experiencing a household adverse situation, a higher degree of exposure to the virus, and more stringent local confinement measures shaped several of the variations in preferences. The focus of the study on a region with high poverty and malnutrition rates offers important insights of the consequences of confinement on perceptions and attitudes in complex and vulnerable rural contexts during the wake of a public health emergency. © 2022 The Author(s)

‘With agroecology, we can defend ourselves': examining campesino resilience and economic solidarity during pandemic-era economic shock in Guatemala

The global spread of Covid-19 led to travel and market restrictions that impacted Guatemala's rural food systems. This distinct economic shock directly affected campesinos, or small-scale farmers who depend on subsistence and commercial food production. Some Guatemalan farmer organizations have been promoting agroecology for decades in efforts to strengthen rural livelihoods and food sovereignty, defend Indigenous rights, and adapt to climate change, and agroecology is positioned as a tool for resilience to various shocks. We consider the neoliberal cooptation of the concept of resilience, and its usefulness in preserving alternative and previous (Indigenous) practices. Data from surveys and semi-structured interviews with farmers and leaders at eight organizations that promote agroecology suggests that prior engagement with a farmer organization, enacted through both agroecological practices and social networks, contributes to campesino resilience to the pandemic's economic shock at the farm level, with regards to production and consumption. This study illustrates the range and diversity of strategies taken up by campesinos during the pandemic, and considers the importance of social networks for collective actions that increase current and future economic solidarity in campesino communities.

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals through the Power of Play

As we work to educate our children in effective ways, supporting their efforts to make a positive difference reaps benefits for both students and society.

Pandemic Times: Elites and Influence in Central America

Elites are vital actors in understanding state strengths and weaknesses during critical times. To what extent do Central American elites constrain tax policies implemented during COVID-19? Using novel data sets of cabinet trajectories and tax policies imple-mented in Central America, this article offers an in-depth empirical comparative analysis of the elites' trajectories and resources, state capacities, and policy implementation. Our findings show first, that when state capacities are weak, and elites' capacities for influence are strong, the policy response is regressive. Second, when there are weak state capacities and inter-elite conflicts, the policy responses are used as a control mechanism. And third, where state capacities are strong, but elites are cohesive, policy responses tend to favor the fiscal status quo. This article contributes to increasing our understanding of the rela-tionship between elite power and public policies by making an empirical and conceptual contribution to studying elites.

Performance of Saliva Compared to Nasopharyngeal Swab in Detection of SARS-CoV-2 at a Field Site in Rural Guatemala Using the Roche Cobas Liat Point-of-Care Assay

Background. Saliva samples are less invasive but not considered the gold standard for detecting SARS-CoV-2, and they are not validated for the Roche Cobas Liat platform. We aimed to evaluate the performance of a saliva sample compared to nasopharyngeal (NP) swab in the detection of SARS-CoV-2 on the Roche Cobas Liat platform at a research site in rural Guatemala. Methods. Adults in an existing cohort study with influenza-like illness (ILI) provided clinical data and underwent NP swab (Copan) collection by trained nurses. Swabs were immediately placed into universal transport media (UTM), stored at 2-8 degreeC for less than 30 minutes and then tested on the Cobas Liat platform for SARS-CoV-2. Consenting subjects who had not eaten or drank in the last 2 hours were asked to provide a 5-mL saliva sample directly into an RNAse free container. The saliva sample remained at 2-8 degreeC for 24 hours, then diluted 1:2 with 0.85% saline (to reduce viscosity) and run on the same assay. We used descriptive statistics to compare the performance of saliva to NP swabs. Results. Of the 28 subjects screened (1/10/22 - 4/26/22), 23 (82%) were consented and enrolled. The majority of subjects were male (78.3%) with a mean age of 31 years (range: 18-59 years). Of the 23 subjects enrolled, 14 (30.4%) reported fever and cough, 16 (34.8%) reported cough only, 14 (30.4%) reported fever only, and 2 (4.3%) reported cough and nasal congestion. The median symptom duration was 3.0 days (IQR: 1.5-5 days). Of the 23 subjects, 5 (23.7%) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 in both sample types (NP swab and saliva);3 (13%) were discordant, including 1 (4.3%) saliva-positive only and 2 (8.7%) NP-positive only. Compared to NP swab, preliminary performance of saliva in detection of SARS-CoV-2 included a sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of 71.4%, 93.7%, 87%, 83.3%, and 88.2%, respectively. The Fisher's exact test p-value (0.003) shows concordance between both tests. Conclusion. Our preliminary results show good precision between NP and saliva samples in detection of SARS-CoV-2 on the Roche Cobas Liat platform. Ongoing data collection will provide greater insight on the discordant results, but our findings support the continued use of saliva in the detection of SARS-CoV-2 in this population.

Barriers and Facilitators to Emergency Medicine Residency Program Development in Latin America and the Caribbean

Background: Although EM is rapidly expanding in Latin America and the Caribbean, there has been no formal evaluation of the implementation of recently established EM training programs to guide the process in other countries. Study Objectives: We aimed to describe the barriers and facilitators of developing an EM residency training program in Latin American and Caribbean countries to identify and disseminate the relevant "lessons learned." Methods: Study Design: Semi-structured, virtual, individual qualitative interviews with key stakeholders involved in the development of EM residency programs in Latin America and the Caribbean. Interviews were in English or Spanish, recorded and transcribed. The Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) guided the interview and analysis using 5 constructs applied systematically to the varying program implementations: inner setting, outer setting, individuals involved, implementation process, and intervention characteristics. Result(s): Fourteen interviews were completed with physicians from Nicaragua, Guatemala, Chile, Mexico, Argentina, Haiti, Peru, and Brazil. Inner setting: Major barriers included lack of EM-trained physicians in the teaching faculty, resistance from other specialties, and lack of general support which caused feelings of isolation for the initial EM residents. Facilitators included the formation of national EM associations, cultivation of local EM-trained faculty as residents graduated, adapting curriculum to local needs, and formal feedback processes for program improvement. Outer setting: Barriers included lack of autonomy of the medical schools from the government and limited public and health system awareness of the role of EM. The COVID-19 pandemic was a facilitator as it brought recognition and legitimacy to EM due to the relevant skill sets of Emergency physicians. Financial help and additional educational opportunities from foreign organizations were helpful in some cases. Individuals involved: Key individuals served as champions who advocated for the implementation of the EM specialty and served as the catalyst for the program implementation in their countries. Some non-Emergency physicians were considered a barrier because of discouraging or luring residents away from EM. Implementation process: Barriers included lack of resources (functional equipment, textbooks), lack of program accreditation, and difficulty engaging applicants due to limited exposure of specialty. Facilitators included recognition and program approval from the Ministry of Health and "grandfathering" to establish first local EM faculty. Intervention characteristics: Barriers included the language of the available EM literature and lack of relevant language skills of the volunteer foreign EM faculty. Lack of funding to provide sufficient salary or any salary at all for the initial EM residents was another hurdle. Facilitators included funding from the government or external entities, and a curriculum document outlining EM-specific objectives enabled consistent, targeted training. Conclusion(s): Countries and organizations planning to initiate new EM training programs in Latin American and the Caribbean may benefit from the shared experience, including common barriers and facilitators to program establishment described by key stakeholders of recently developed programs in the region. Dissemination of these findings will avoid institutions "re-inventing the wheel". No, authors do not have interests to disclose Copyright © 2022

The unintended consequences of confinement: Evidence from the rural area in Guatemala

Individual and social preferences have shown to be important factors in individual decision making and general economic performance. Yet, they are usually assumed as given and stable, underestimating their impact in the rhythm of economic recovery after a natural disaster or pandemic. This paper examines the effects of COVID-19 initial confinement on households' individual and social preferences across small communities in the rural area of Guatemala. We use a comprehensive panel household survey of agricultural smallholders collected during two survey rounds in 2019, prior to the pandemic, and 2020 and find that preferences generally shifted following the onset of the pandemic. We observe a significant increase in risk tolerance, deteriorated perceptions towards trust and generosity, and a higher frequency of emotional issues, while intra-household relationships remain stable. We find that experiencing a household adverse situation, a higher degree of exposure to the virus, and more stringent local confinement measures shaped several of the variations in preferences. The focus of the study on a region with high poverty and malnutrition rates offers important insights of the consequences of confinement on perceptions and attitudes in complex and vulnerable rural contexts during the wake of a public health emergency.