An exploratory study of the social and emotional impact of COVID-19 on LGBTQ+ adolescents living in rural communities

This study examined the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on 16 LGBTQ+ individuals 16 -18 years of age in rural Washington. Data were collected using semi structured virtual interviews, an Experience Questionnaire (EQ) and the Behavioral Assessment Scale for Children - Edition 3 Behavioral and Emotional Screening System (BASC-3). A few major themes emerged from the data: changes in relationships, negative psychological impacts, resiliency, and challenges such as barriers, tensions, and routine changes. Participants found COVID-19 restrictions created barriers to accessing social outlets such as extracurricular activities, LGBTQ+ community center, and so on, as well as engaging with resources for mental and physical health. Participants reported that navigating the significant changes in routines due to school closings and social distancing measures negatively impacted their mental health. Online school, increased home responsibilities, lack of structure or routine, and pressure to maintain grades were the main stressors found to contribute to a decline in mental health. Tensions related to having differing opinions from family members were often triggered or exacerbated by increased proximity with family, due to being stuck at home. Tensions also included experiences of homophobia, transphobia, and racism. These tensions contributed to lower mental health, as many participants felt "trapped" in their own home and unable to reveal parts of their identity. Participants reported that COVID-19 restrictions also impacted their relationships positively in some ways. Some participants found that COVID-19 restrictions allowed them to get out of negative relationships, identify healthy or positive friendships, and be more intentional in their friendships. Although most participants experienced negative psychological impacts on their mental health, many were also able to identify areas of resiliency and improvement. Participants identified new methods for coping, found new and innovative ways to engage with support networks, and found that increased time alone allowed for self-improvement and unprecedented identity exploration. Results of the study add to the limited research currently available about the impact COVID-19 restrictions had on LGBTQ+ youth in rural areas and provide critical information for professionals who work with school-aged LGBTQ+ populations, especially those living in rural communities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Governing Rural Poverty on Urban Streets: Guangzhou's Management of Beggars in the Reform Era

This study investigates how discourses on panhandling intertwine with the governance of beggars on China's urban streets. It focuses on local policy implementation in Guangzhou city, led by the bureau of civil affairs along with its centres for "custody and repatriation” and "assistance stations.” The study aims to understand how the state regulates panhandling and engages with beggars in public spaces. Exploring the internal logic of the state's approach and how it has changed during the 40 years of reform, it also considers the junctures at which contradictions and conflicts arise. Based on fieldwork data (2011 to 2014) and the analysis of government documents, yearbooks, academic and mass media discourses, I argue that the state's treatment of panhandlers poses a conundrum as welfare measures conflict with control. While several layers of state regulation and actors contradict each other and create grey areas of state-induced informality, people who beg for alms are continuously criminalized and excluded from public space.

Fighting Covid-19 in rural communities: coordinated mobilization and reconstruction of community order in a village in Northern China

Taking a remote village in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region as a case study, this paper discusses how coordinated mobilization constructed a temporary grassroots-level emergency order in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The study reveals that the temporary emergency order was established through a combination of state power, villagers' understanding of the infection risks of the coronavirus, and village self-management traditions. It finds that party members, elites, and villagers made a coordinated effort to mobilize and fight Covid-19. The paper concludes the state can effectively mobilize loosely-knit rural communities to face major risks such as the Covid-19 pandemic.

Women and the Justice Divide in Asia Pacific: How can Informal and Formal Institutions Bridge the Gap?

Across Asia and the Pacific, legal pluralist systems meet both cultural norms and address injustices at the local level. What is the capacity of these pluralist systems to provide justice and mitigate discrimination against women? This article examines women's experiences across five countries to identify the factors that enable and constrain women's engagement with legal pluralist justice systems in the Asia-Pacific region. Drawing on examples of women's individual and collective attempts to access justice specifically concerning custody, land, and violence, this article identifies three persistent conditions that perpetuate women's inability to access justice: the absence of gender mainstreaming resources in pluralist legal systems, most notably in rural, remote, and impoverished communities;cultural and religious preference for women's underrepresentation in decision-making;and women's low representation in justice-related civil service positions.

Co-designing with engineers for community engagement in rural Uganda

Co-design is seen as crucial for designing solutions for resource-constrained people living in developing countries. To best understand their needs, user engagement and co-design strategies need to first be developed. In this Design Practice Brief, a process of co-design was created and used to understand ways telecommunication engineers could engage with rural communities in Uganda. It reports and reflects on (i) the experience of co-designing with nondesigners and (ii) creating a co-design structure and developing co-design methods of engaging with community members living in developing countries. In doing so, it offers a format and case study for future practitioners facilitating and conducting co-design with nondesigners and contributes to a knowledge gap in the reporting and reflection of co-design practice. This case study is unique as the co-design practice was achieved remotely (online), crossed disciplines (designers and telecommunication engineers) and cultural boundaries (European and African). It finds that in co-designing with nondesigners, preparation and structure are key, with acknowledgement and management of cultural and discipline differences.

Meatpacking working conditions and the spread of COVID-19

This paper explores how working conditions in meatpacking plants contributed to the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Data from the Occupational Information Network was used to construct a set of industry-level working condition variables and compare meatpacking to the sample of other manufacturing industries in our comparison group. This novel approach showed that proximity to others in the meatpacking industry is likely the main factor influencing the spread of COVID-19, more than three standard deviations higher in meatpacking than our comparison sample of other manufacturing industries. Subsequently, we performed a county-level analysis on COVID-19 spread, comparing rural counties with a large share of meatpacking workers to nonmetropolitan counties that were similarly dependent on other single manufacturing industries, using the time frame of mid-March to the end of 2020. In mid-April 2020, COVID-19 cases in meatpacking-dependent rural counties rose to more than 12 times compared to rural counties dependent on other single manufacturing industries. This difference disappeared completely by mid-July and held steady throughout the year. We demonstrate that our results are robust to a battery of robustness checks ruling out the set of plausible alternative hypotheses, including examining data on COVID-19 spread among meatpacking workers directly.

Life during Covid-19: An Explorative Qualitative Study of Occupational Therapists in South Africa

This article explores the experiences of fifteen occupational therapists during the Covid-19 pandemic. Participants from rural and urban areas in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, were recruited using snowball sampling. Semi-structured interviews and personal narratives were used to collect data on occupational engagement during the pandemic. Inductive thematic analysis was used. The impact of Covid-19 on occupational engagement, occupational adaptations, factors that negatively influenced occupational engagement and enablers to occupational engagement emerged as themes. Participants experienced role changes at work and home, as well as feelings of isolation. It is essential to advocate for the role of occupation therapy during a pandemic.Ethical Clearance Number: BREC/00002587/2021

Taking on the "new normal”: emerging psychologists' reflections on the COVID-19 pandemic

PurposeCoronavirus (COVID-19) rapidly became the "new normal” with profound implications for everyone's daily life. In this paper, emerging psychologists from diverse cultural backgrounds discuss four main ways in which COVID-19 impacted diverse psychological populations.Design/methodology/approachThis paper was written as a reflection on how COVID-19 has impacted diverse psychological populations using authors' academic and personal experiences.FindingsFirst, the authors explore inaccessible populations with a focus on domestic violence victims living in rural areas. Second, the authors consider consequences of social isolation with a focus on remote workers. Third, the authors investigate the consequences of public (dis)trust in the pandemic with a focus on migrant worker communities. Finally, the authors discuss pandemic-relevant subcultures with a focus on "anti-vaxxers”.Social implicationsThe paper concludes with a discussion of negative implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on diverse psychological populations, both for the present and the future, and ends with an action plan of possible interventions to overcome these limitations.Originality/valueOverall, the current paper provides a broad overview of how the pandemic has shaped and will continue to shape diverse psychological populations.

Transitioning towards human–robot synergy in agriculture: A systems thinking perspective

Digital transformation has unveiled new prospects for increased performance and productivity in the agricultural sector to meet rising food security needs. Continuous industrialization and unexpected disruptions (e.g., workforce mobility restrictions due to the COVID‐19 pandemic) call for the adoption of agricultural robots. However, automated solutions could be associated with societal challenges in rural areas;unemployment growth has been perceived as a major threat that jeopardizes societal welfare, potentially hindering the implementation of digital technologies. In this context, human–robot synergistic systems could act as a promising socially viable alternative. Through systems thinking, this research investigates the complex interconnections and key feedback mechanisms of automation diffusion (conventional and human–robot interactive) under the socio‐economic perceptions (drivers and barriers) of agribusinesses and rural communities. Overall, this study contributes towards eliciting the mental models that underpin the transition from agricultural robots to human–robot collaboration by transforming automation‐related societal risks into opportunities for sustainable rural development.

Addressing the Shortage of Health Professionals in Official Language Minority Communities to Strengthen Retention Strategies for the Benefit of New Brunswick Francophone and Acadian Communities: Protocol for a Mixed Methods Design.

BACKGROUND: COVID-19 has highlighted already existing human resource gaps in health care systems. New Brunswick health care services are significantly weakened by a shortage of nurses and physicians, affecting regions where Official Language Minority Communities (OLMCs) reside. Since 2008, Vitalité Health Network (the "Network"), whose work language is French (with services delivered in both official languages, English and French), has provided health care to OLMCs in New Brunswick. The Network currently needs to fill hundreds of vacant physician and nurse positions. It is imperative to strengthen the network's retention strategies to ensure its viability and maintain adequate health care services for OLMCs. The study is a collaborative effort between the Network (our partner) and the research team to identify and implement organizational and structural strategies to upscale retention. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to support one of New Brunswick health networks in identifying and implementing strategies to promote physician and registered nurse retention. More precisely, it wishes to make 4 important contributions to identify (and enhance our understanding of) the factors related to the retention of physicians and nurses within the Network; determine, based on the "Magnet Hospital" model and the "Making it Work" framework, on which aspects of the Network's environment (internal or external) it should focus for its retention strategy; define clear and actionable practices to help the Network replenish its strength and vitality; and improve the quality of health care services to OLMCs. METHODS: The sequential methodology combines quantitative and qualitative approaches based on a mixed methods design. For the quantitative part, data collected through the years by the Network will be used to take stock of vacant positions and examine turnover rates. These data will also help determine which areas have the most critical challenges and which ones have more successful approaches regarding retention. Recruitment will be made in those areas for the qualitative part of the study to conduct interviews and focus groups with different respondents, either currently employed or who have left it in the last 5 years. RESULTS: This study was funded in February 2022. Active enrollment and data collection started in the spring of 2022. A total of 56 semistructured interviews were conducted with physicians and nurses. As of manuscript submission, qualitative data analysis is in progress and quantitative data collection is intended to end by February 2023. Summer and fall 2023 is the anticipated period to disseminate the results. CONCLUSIONS: Applying the "Magnet Hospital" model and the "Making it Work" framework outside urban settings will offer a novel outlook to the knowledge of professional resource shortages within OLMCs. Furthermore, this study will generate recommendations that could contribute to a more robust retention plan for physicians and registered nurses. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/41485.

Sociodemographic Predictors of Depression in US Rural Communities During COVID-19: Implications for Improving Mental Healthcare Access to Increase Disaster Preparedness.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this research is to identify sociodemographic predictors of depression for a rural population in the US during the COVID-19 pandemic to enhance mental health disaster preparedness. METHODS: This study uses t-tests to differentiate between gender and ethnicity groups regarding depression status; binary logistic regression to identify socio-demographic characteristics that predict depression status; and t-test to differentiate between average depression scores, measured by the PHQ-9, pre-COVID-19 pandemic (2019) and after it's start (2020). RESULTS: Results indicate that men were less likely than women to report depression. Clients who identified as Latinx/Hispanic were 2.8 times more likely than non-Hispanics to report depression and clients who did not reside in public housing were 19.9% less likely to report depression. There was a statistically significant difference between mean PHQ-9 scores pre- and post-pandemic, with pre-pandemic scores lower on average, with a small effect size. CONCLUSIONS: Building on findings from this study, we propose ways to increase rural access to mental health services, through equitable access to telemedicine, to meet the needs of rural clients to increase disaster preparedness.

Rural older adults' wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic

Recent studies reveal adults 65 and over are living longer, healthier lives than ever before. However, this older generation is often vulnerable to exclusion, marginalization, and discrimination, made worse by the events and circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic brought unprecedented challenges and disproportionate threats to the integrity and wellbeing of older adults, especially those living in rural communities. Nonetheless, little is known about the effects the pandemic had on rural older adults' wellbeing. This generic qualitative study explored rural older adults' wellbeing during the pandemic, using the theoretical frameworks of Erikson's stage theory of psychosocial development and Seligman's theory of wellbeing PERMA (positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishments) model. Criterion sampling and snowball approaches were used to recruit ten rural individuals, aged 70 years and older and living independently during the pandemic, to participate in semi structured interviews. Data were analyzed using a six-phase thematic analysis to identify themes and patterns and interpret these themes in connection to the study. Three core themes were identified from the data: (a) potential effects on wellbeing, (b) protecting independence, and (c) emotional effects of losing self. The results of the study can generate positive social change through awareness and an enhanced understanding of how this challenging time has affected rural older adults' wellbeing at a key period of psychosocial development with an aim to create better interventions for this population. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Pushed to the Margins: Ethiopian Migrants in South Africa

Ethiopian immigrants in South Africa are increasingly occupying informal trading space in townships, rural areas and in select central business districts across the country. This article documents the experiences of Ethiopian migrants in the informal sector in South Africa. Theoretically, the article rests on the concept of everyday life. It draws on data from interviews, focus group discussions and observations carried out between October 2020 and September 2021. This signals a period in which everyone was challenged by COVID-19, especially migrants, which compounded the hierarchies of marginality in which Ethiopian migrants in South Africa are situated. Coupled with this, Ethiopian migrants face two broad levels of marginality: firstly, marginality from state policies and the communities in which they reside and work;and secondly, marginality from gendered and class-based inequalities within the Ethiopian community. The structural and hegemonic barriers range from lack of documentation to regularize residency status and business respectively, extortion by gangs in the name of "protection fee,” exploitation by local level state/community structures and women restricted to female roles. By the same token, we see the creativity and ingenuity of this community, that focuses on their personhood, to make sense of their lives and create conditions to live meaningful lives. This article explores some of the core contestations emerging out of these twin marginalities the ways in which Ethiopian migrants structure their lives and livelihoods in South Africa.

Predictive model to determine the growth of mobile money transactions in Zambia using data mining techniques

Mobile money has been known to be a successful venture around the world especially so, for African countries due to the many limitations that traditional banks have like operations, expensive transaction costs and cumbersome process to open account to mention but a few. The presence of mobile money has not only allowed the unbanked population to have accounts but has also alleviated poverty for many rural communities. Zambia has seen an increase of mobile money accounts and COVID-19 has exacerbated this increase. Therefore, this paper sought to determine data mining algorithm best predicts mobile money transaction growth. This paper was quantitative in nature and used aggregated monthly mobile money data (from Zambian mobile network operators) from 2013 to 2020 as its sample which was collected from Bank of Zambia and Zambia Information Communications and Technology Authority. The paper further used WEKA data mining tool for data analysis following the Cross-Industrial Standard Process for data mining guidelines. The performance from best to least is K-nearest neighbour, random forest, support vector machines, multilayer perceptron and linear regression. The predictions from data mining techniques can be deployed to predict growth of mobile money and hence be used in financial inclusion policy formulation and other strategies that can further improve service delivery by mobile network operators.

Developing an App for Improving Access to COVID-19 Information in Underserved Communities

The deployment of mobile health (mHealth) apps can transform healthcare in rural and remote communities worldwide. Rural communities in Zimbabwe have limited access to information that affects their health, economic and social being due to structural and social barriers related to the inaccessibility of traditional media. mhealth apps are a valuable tool to monitor disease outbreaks and provide preventative information to the public. Lack of access to COVID-19 information results in high fatalities and public panic, and it is critical to publish reliable and timely information. The study's objective was to demonstrate the utility of a mHealth app prototype developed to enhance access to COVID-19 information in rural and remote communities in Zimbabwe. The prototype provides COVID-19 information such as statistics, preventative measures, self-diagnostics, social distancing information, and general hygiene to rural communities with limited access to official information channels on the pandemic. A design science research methodology was used to design, build and evaluate the COVID-19 mHealth app and fulfil the study's objectives. Thirty potential users participated in the evaluation of the prototype. The evaluation results show that potential users perceived that the prototype was useful, engaging, easy to learn, well designed, and provided relevant information. A strong correlation was observed between the design, engagement, functionality, and learnability. More widespread usability and more representative tests should be conducted to ascertain the efficacy and usability of the app. The study contributes literature on usability studies in developing countries. As more mHealth apps are being developed and deployed, more usability tests will be required to ensure that they are fit for purpose. The paper provides a baseline for developing related health information apps. Policymakers, health practitioners, technologists, and scholars can further investigate the deployment of digital technologies to improve healthcare and control the transmission and spread of COVID-19.

"Whoever Needs Food We'll Feed Them One Way or the Other": COVID-19 and Food Aid in Appalachian Kentucky

In one eastern Kentucky county, the COVID-19 pandemic and related economic downturn ushered in increases in federal and corporate aid. In response, families with school-aged children distributed excess food to friends and neighbors and donated food back to pantries they had previously utilized. In-depth, semi-structured interviews illuminate how public-private food aid amidst the COVID-19 pandemic was distributed to and within rural Kentucky communities and who was left out. I introduce the concept of networks of care, which comprise local systems of distribution among family, friends, and neighbors that challenge reliance on market labor for subsistence while demanding constant work to maintain. This paper argues that networks of care demonstrate the need and an extent infrastructure for large-scale distributive politics that compensate for this ongoing care work.

Shifts in the Trend and Nature of Migration in the Ethiopia-South Africa Migration Corridor

Over the past 25 years a significant (but unknown) number of migrants from Ethiopia have been migrating to South Africa through the "southern route.” This male-dominated migration is becoming more and more irregular and includes multiple transit countries, largely controlled by human smugglers. The size of the Ethiopian immigrant population in South Africa has increased. The profile of individuals on the move has also changed in terms of migrants' age, ethnicity, place of origin, gender and socioeconomic status. Youth from rural areas have joined the migration trail, and, increasingly, women are migrating for marriage in South Africa. Today, migrants from southern Ethiopia (Hadiya and Kambata) dominate Ethiopian migration to South Africa. The age and socioeconomic status of the migrants have also changed where teenagers, college graduates and civil servants are entering the migration stream in recent years. Equally changing is the nature and operation of the smuggling and settlement processes. Like the broader field of migration studies in which source and destination countries receive the overwhelming focus, the multiple transit countries Ethiopians on the move to South Africa travel through, and the migration journeys themselves, have not received adequate research attention. The effects these journeys have on the settlement processes are also largely ignored. This article, therefore, explores these emerging patterns with a view to understanding the inequalities faced by Ethiopian migrants on their journey to South Africa and the factors behind it. With the intensification of border closures due to multiple factors, including the COVID-19 pandemic, we examine the shift in the nature and trend of smuggling and how it is reflected in inequalities experienced by Ethiopian migrants in South Africa.

Why Digital Health Literacy Matters in Rural Sub-Saharan Africa: How Bridging the Digital Health Literacy Gap Could Improve Access to Health Services and Social Equality

Around the world, mobile phones have been used for quite some years now to put healthcare systems into interactive action through various mobile health applications. The results regarding efficiency, access, greater social equality, and interconnectivity are proven, and they promise to mitigate economic and educational gaps. All this is increasingly the case in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where the technological prerequisites are quickly evolving. About 500 million people in SSA--more than 46 percent of the region's population--were subscribing to mobile services in 2020, and their numbers are forecast to reach 615 million in 2025. In the meantime, coverage works also in the structurally poorest areas. In 2020, 2G mobile network coverage in Burkina Faso was 81 percent for the territory and 92.4 percent for the population. The high penetration rate of mobile phones and the increasing coverage of the mobile network has created a vast variety of opportunities for health provision. Mobile devices can no longer be ignored in practical health delivery and disease prevention workflows.

Continuity, change and new ways of being: an exploratory assessment of farmer's experiences and responses to public health restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic in a rural Irish community. (Special Issue: Landscapes of support: farmer wellbeing and rural resilience through and beyond crises.)

Farming occupations are, in the Global North, generally solitary, and a growing body of research identifies this as one of the factors that underpins low levels of wellbeing and poor mental health amongst farmers. The primary public health response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic focused on reducing transmission of the virus by limiting interactions of people. This article seeks to assess the impact of these restrictions on farmer's experience of isolation and how it shaped their wellbeing. Applying a broad socio-ecological framework, we analyse change, continuity and shifts in social and economic relations and their spatial reconfiguration during the COVID-19 pandemic as recounted in semi-structured, qualitative interviews. We found that while COVID-19 has disrupted socio-spatial relations, including key sites of socialisation for farmers and rural communities, occupational isolation was viewed as a positive feature of farming as was working in nature. Familial and informal networks of support were important throughout the pandemic, while novel engagements with communication technologies facilitated both change and continuity of social and economic interaction. Whilst these findings are broadly positive, the reconfiguration of, particularly, economic relations is viewed as accelerating the turn towards service delivery using technology and, consequently, further reducing opportunities for social interaction.

Adapting to eco-anxiety: Experiences from Zambia

This chapter presents case examples of eco-anxiety in Africa. The rural communities in Zambia are highly dependent on agriculture, which has already been much affected by the climate crisis. The chapter examines various reactions and coping methods, along with gaps where further research is needed. It analyzes eco-anxiety and the anxiety and hysteria brought about by COVID-19. It has shown that although humans and nature have lived symbiotically for centuries, anthropogenic activities were detrimental to this relationship. Therefore, for humans to enjoy their ancient relationship with nature, their destructive activities on nature needed to be minimized. However, there have been some exaggerations regarding the effects of climate change. Predictions of doom, extinction, and other alarming words were more responsible for eco-anxiety. Despite these alarms and actual danger, humans could adapt. As the world was coming to terms with climate change and eco-anxiety, COVID-19 emerged with even more devastation and threats to humanity. Unlike climate change, COVID-19 was sudden, fast, and fatal while restricting human activities, thereby affecting all aspects of life. It was therefore more anxiety-causing than climate change. Future research should focus on reducing alarmism, enhancing human adaptation to climate change, minimizing its effects, and preparing for pandemics. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)