Who is to blame for COVID-19? Examining politicized fear and health behavior through a mixed methods study in the United States.

BACKGROUND: Political ideologies drove public actions and health behaviors in the first year of the global pandemic. Different ideas about contagion, health behaviors, and the actions of governing bodies impacted the spread of the virus and health and life. Researchers used an immediate, mixed methods design to explore sociocultural responses to the virus and identified differences and similarities in anxiety, fear, blame, and perceptions of nation across political divides. METHODS: Researchers conducted 60 in-depth, semi-structured interviews and administered over 1,000 questionnaires with people living in the United States. The team analyzed data through an exploratory and confirmatory sequential mixed methods design. RESULTS: In the first months of the pandemic interviewees cited economic inequality, untrustworthy corporations and other entities, and the federal government as threats to life and pandemic control. Participants invoked ideas about others to determine blame. Findings reveal heavy associations between lack of safety during a public health crisis and blame of "culture" and government power across the political spectrum. CONCLUSION: Data indicate anxiety across political differences related to ideas of contagion and the maleficence of a powerful elite. Findings on how people understand the nation, politics, and pandemic management contribute to understanding dimensions of health behaviors and underlying connections between anxiety and the uptake of conspiracy theories in public health. The article ends with recommendations drawn from project findings for future pandemic response.

Living in opposition: How women in the United States cope in spite of mistrust of federal leadership during the pandemic of Covid-19.

International research collaborators conducted research investigating sociocultural responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. Our mixed methods research design includes surveys and interviews conducted between March and September of 2020 including 249 of 506 survey responses and 18 of 50 in-depth, exploratory, semi-structured interviews with self-defined politically left-leaning women in the United States. We employ a sequential design to analyze statistical and qualitative data. Despite international data suggesting that trust in federal governments reduces anxiety, women who did not trust and actively opposed the Trump administration reported lower levels of anxiety than expected. Results indicate reliance on and development of new forms of connection that seem to mitigate symptomatic anxieties when living in opposition. Women living in opposition to the leadership of the federal government use and develop resources to help them cope. Research on coping strategies and mental health and anxiety during crisis can inform recommendations for ways to support and strengthen sense of coherence during tumultuous times.