Measuring citizens' engagement during emergencies: Psychometric validation of the Public Health Engagement Scale for Emergency Settings (PHEs-E).

The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of citizens' behaviors in the containment of the virus. Individuals might change their intention to adhere to public health prescriptions depending on various personal characteristics, including their own emotional status, which has been recognized to be a crucial psychological factor in orienting people's adherence to public health recommendation during emergency settings. In particular, it is crucial to support citizens' alliance with authorities and feeling of trust: public engagement is a concept that refers to the general involvement of citizens into public affairs which is generally considered an effective approach to enhance citizens' understanding of their crucial role in public affairs. However, so far there is no agreement on the metrics and indexes that should be used to measures public engagement during a health crisis. The aim of this paper is to validate a psychometric scale (PHEs-E), which intends to measure the readiness of individuals to adhere to the prescribed behavioral change to contain the emergency. Data were collected throughout the pandemic in Italy: in particular, five independent samples were recruited starting from March 2020 to March 2021. Results showed that the proposed measure has good psychometric characteristics. A general linear model was computed to assess the differences of public engagement across the different data points and among citizens with different sociodemographic characteristics. Correlations with other psychological constructs (i.e. Anxiety, Depression and Self-Efficacy) were also tested, showing that more engaged citizens have a lower level of anxiety and depression, and a higher self-efficacy. This study's findings indicate that individuals' characteristics may differentiate citizens' motivation to engage in public health behavioral recommendation to prevent the COVID-19 contagion. However the scale could be useful to perform a psychological monitoring of psychological readiness to engage in public health strategies to face critical events and settings.

COVID-19 Data Utilization in North Carolina: Qualitative Analysis of Stakeholder Experiences.

BACKGROUND: As the world faced the pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), medical professionals, technologists, community leaders, and policy makers sought to understand how best to leverage data for public health surveillance and community education. With this complex public health problem, North Carolinians relied on data from state, federal, and global health organizations to increase their understanding of the pandemic and guide decision-making. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to describe the role that stakeholders involved in COVID-19-related data played in managing the pandemic in North Carolina. The study investigated the processes used by organizations throughout the state in using, collecting, and reporting COVID-19 data. METHODS: We used an exploratory qualitative study design to investigate North Carolina's COVID-19 data collection efforts. To better understand these processes, key informant interviews were conducted with employees from organizations that collected COVID-19 data across the state. We developed an interview guide, and open-ended semistructured interviews were conducted during the period from June through November 2020. Interviews lasted between 30 and 45 minutes and were conducted by data scientists by videoconference. Data were subsequently analyzed using qualitative data analysis software. RESULTS: Results indicated that electronic health records were primary sources of COVID-19 data. Often, data were also used to create dashboards to inform the public or other health professionals, to aid in decision-making, or for reporting purposes. Cross-sector collaboration was cited as a major success. Consistency among metrics and data definitions, data collection processes, and contact tracing were cited as challenges. CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest that, during future outbreaks, organizations across regions could benefit from data centralization and data governance. Data should be publicly accessible and in a user-friendly format. Additionally, established cross-sector collaboration networks are demonstrably beneficial for public health professionals across the state as these established relationships facilitate a rapid response to evolving public health challenges.

Oral Health Stakeholders: A Time for Alignment and Action.

Policy Points Since the Surgeon General's report in 2000, multiple stakeholder groups have engaged in advocacy to expand access to oral health coverage, integrate medicine and dentistry, and to improve the dental workforce. Using a stakeholder map across these three policy priorities, we describe how stakeholder groups are shaping the oral health policy landscape in this century. While the stakeholders are numerous, policy has changed little despite invested efforts and resources. To achieve change, multiple movements must coalesce around common goals and messages and a champion must emerge to lead the way. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and political changes due to the 2020 elections can open a window of opportunity to unite stakeholders to achieve comprehensive policy change.

Caring for their own: How firm actions to protect essential workers and CEO benevolence influenced stakeholder sentiment during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Whereas many workplaces shut down following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many others in essential industries had to remain operational, thus exposing their employees to COVID-19's inherent dangers. These firms were pressed to take immediate action to protect their employees' safety and financial well-being. However, firms varied considerably in the degree to which they took action, and stakeholders appeared to take notice. Leveraging attribution theory, we build theory around the impact of firm actions to protect employee safety and compensation on stakeholder sentiment toward the firm. We further examined how firm leadership helped shape stakeholder sentiment by theorizing about the joint impact of actions with Chief Executive Officer (CEO) benevolence. We built a unique, multisourced data set and tested our theory on a sample of public firms in the consumer staples sector. Our longitudinal analysis of positive stakeholder sentiment expressed on social media demonstrated the importance of these immediate firm actions on sentiment in the initial months of the pandemic. Specifically, firm compensation actions were associated with a growth in positive sentiment over these months, particularly when made by CEOs with high benevolence, whereas firm safety actions led to growth in positive sentiment but only when made by CEOs with low benevolence. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of firm actions and leadership at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Collaboration in handling COVID-19 toward people in poverty line: study case in Makassar.

OBJECTIVE: The large-scale social distancing policy conducted twice was unable to reduce the rate of development of COVID-19 widespread in Makassar, yet it increased. One of the causes was that social awareness is still lacking especially for people in the poverty line. This study attempts to describe the social behavior of people in poverty line toward COVID-19 case in Makassar. METHOD: This research is a qualitative descriptive study based on the case. The data analysis was undertaken qualitatively. RESULTS: The results revealed that the limited understanding of people in poverty line about COVID-19 and health protocols makes their behavior indifferent and disobedient to health protocols. In addition, the government's top-down approach to deal with COVID-19 pandemic was ineffective. However, bottom-up collaborative interventions need to be carried out through a group approach to gain an understanding of the COVID-19 health protocol, especially for people in poverty line and other vulnerable groups.