AHFE Open AccessGlobal Issues: Disease Control and Pandemic Prevention
Editors: Jay Kalra, Tareq Ahram
Topics: Pandemic Prevention
Publication Date: 2022
ISBN: 978-1-958651-00-1
DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1001352
Articles
Cultural, recreational and tourist Cherkasy region under pandemic conditions
The paper is devoted to the study of the peculiarities of tourism development in Cherkasy region under the pandemic conditions. The statistical analysis of data on visiting tourist sites of Cherkasy region is carried out. New technological opportunities for cultural leisure and knowledge of the historical and cultural heritage of the region are considered. It is noted that the 3D map will help provide equal opportunities for people with disabilities in terms of tourism. Given that the development of information and communication technologies also largely determines the social transformation “Cultural, recreational and tourist Cherkasy region: inclusive and social 3D-map” will offer ways to solve the problem of education and social development of people with disabilities, creating new technologies to improve quality of life, introducing an effective system of social and psychological rehabilitation of children and youth with special educational needs through cultural and inclusive tourism
Oksana Kravchenko, Marina Mishchenko, Viktoriia Isachenko, Inna Honchar, Yuliia Lysenko, Olena Polishchuk, Yuliia Pesotskaya
Open Access
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Conference Proceedings
Rare cancers and digital quest for authority during Covid 19 Pandemic
In the unprecedented context of the pandemic and its communicational corollaries, the "infodemic" and fake news, This paper aims to investigate the search for online information and support for rare cancer patients and their families.By mobilizing the tools of content and discourse analysis, we question the construction of the expert parent figure, in online forums, focusing on a very specific type of cancer: glioblastoma. It is a rare brain cancer more than often diagnosed at a late stage, with a very poor prognosis and huge and disabling neurological impairments at the time of identification of the disease therefore the analysis conducted focuses on the words of the patients' families. To what extent has this diagnosis and the difficulties in accessing information been modified by the ongoing pandemic since 2020? The treatment of information in times of pandemic produces communicative emphasis to the detriment of certain pathologies; in the same way that the hospital crisis required the sorting of patients accessing the intensive care units. The comparative analysis of a double corpus, before and during the pandemic, will allow us to address the possible transformations of the enunciations of authority online.When a web patient chat room happens to deal with glioblastoma, the discussion happens most of the time between close relatives. Therefore, this paper deals with the following questions: how do these discourses show the parents’ building of authority? To what extent is their on-line quest for authority also a try to free themselves from the medical « already-said », by requesting a kind of « never-said »? Through the semio-communicational analysis of a specific corpus of web forums, the paper underlines how parents position themselves relative to other actors and how they produce their own « authorization process ».The study conducted here aims to understand how, in the case of glioblastoma, the mediation of digital writing can promote the position of authority and the recognition of the parent as a potential expert in this disease characterized by its rarity.It is within the restrictive online discourses frameworks that impose their "order of discourse" that truly "compensatory" information is deployed insofar as it fills what is felt to be a void, especially during the pandemic. This information is a construction cobbled together by families for families in the inter-discourse of the forms of digital dialogism specific to forums, a double escape that underlines the inadequacies of legitimate words and fundamentally questions the question of authority when authority itself seems to lack knowledge.
Karine Berthelot Guiet, Juliette Charbonneaux
Open Access
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Conference Proceedings
Challenges and Associated Mental Stress During COVID-19 Work Adaptation among Employees in Ireland
The emergence of COVID-19 has resulted in workplace adaptations globally. This study aims to understand the challenges faced by employees during COVID-19 workplace adaptation that could cause mental health distress. Fifteen focus groups were conducted with Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) and/or human resource professionals (n=60) from various occupational settings in Ireland between April and May 2021. The findings showed that stress arose from three primary sources: technostress, work-from-home adaptation, and COVID-19 longevity. Supports from organizations, such as providing timely information, Employee Assistance Programs, informal communication channels and the reinforcement of COVID-19 control measures, are discussed as the possible solutions to mitigate employees’ mental stress. This study contributes to the understanding of employees’ stress and the development of an intervention plan for alleviating the mental health impacts arising from occupational adaption due to COVID-19. The findings also have implications for workplace coping strategies during future global public health crises.
Yanbing Chen, Carolyn Ingram, Vicky Downey, Mark Roe, Anne Drummond, Penpatra Sripaiboonkij, Claire Buckley, Elizabeth Alvarez, Carla Perrotta, Conor Buggy
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Interdisciplinary Communication and Advice under Uncertainty in a Pandemic
Communication in a pandemic is difficult and complex. It is characterized by volatile situations associated with a high degree of uncertainty and, in some cases, social divergence in groups and societies. Orientation is expected, by politicians and individuals, from science. However, sciences are only fulfilling the expectations to a limited extent. We demonstrate that there are severe weaknesses in holistic and interdisciplinary communication in the pandemic and show that established tools from management are neglected and overlooked.We then analyze the specific needs of scientific reasoning in pandemic situations such as •a rational approach integrating both estimates and explicit evidence;•expressing and quantifying uncertainty; •considering interdisciplinary aspects in advice and decision making;•the ability to deal with ethical aspects;•simple updates with new findings and evidence.In a third step we compare from literature and own experience existing methods from management science for their suitability against those needs. We find that many of the interdisciplinary tools are deterministic, like Multi Criteria Analyses, and do not support uncertainty. The frequently adopted linear computation of utility values leads to ethical issues. Foresight methods like Delphi or Scenario methods deal with uncertainty and subjectivity. But they are not designed to integrate strong evidence. Strategic planning tools like roadmaps are comprehensible but disappoint in volatile situations. Probabilistic decision making with expected utilities is too complex and suffers from missing data. Heuristics at the other hand are simple but do not allow for comprehensive reasoning. We then argue in a fourth step to use probability in communication and to apply it to decision making in the pandemic. We propose a simple one-step method with a calculus based on Bayes’ theorem and calculate the probabilities of alternative courses of action being the best un der given conditios. With examples we show how arguments from various scientific disciplines can be integrated in decision making and adjusted as new evidence appears. Furthermore, we provide a role model and show by examples how scientists, scientific consultants and decision makers can cooperate and communicate using the method.We conclude that the method fulfils the identified needs to a high degree and is worth to be further developed. We show its epistemic and scientific limitations and give an outlook how likelihood functions may be used to replace negotiated likelihoods by parametric and model based values.
Manfred Dangelmaier, Wilhelm Bauer, Zimu Chen
Open Access
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Conference Proceedings
Lifestyle-related Factors affecting Physical Inactivity Issues among Filipino Aging Population during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Multiple Regression Approach
In the Philippines, physical inactivity is a significant concern among the elderly population. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, most elderly people have stayed inside their residences, limiting to their routine requirements of daily physical activities and prevention in their exposure to the virus. Alcohol consumption and motivation contributes to how elderly population were limited to basic physical activities. This paper aimed to determine the factors affecting less physical inactivity among the ninety-seven Filipino elderly population through multiple regression analysis. Results were gathered through online surveys and showed that alcohol consumption (p-value = 0.015) and motivation (p-value = 0.000) contribute to how elderly population were limited to do basic physical activities. Recommendations include a weekly physical activity guide plan and low-intensity physical activities such as walking and stretching without compromising government restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Joehanna Ngo, Yoshiki Kurata, Zyra Mae Sicat, Dannah Isabelle Buñas, Jaylord Gutierrez, Pamela Pangilinan, Pamela Ann Mae Pascual
Open Access
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Conference Proceedings
Pedestrian Modeling for Mitigation of Disease Transmission in a Simulated University Environment
Understanding the spread of COVID-19 through mathematical modeling is an effective method of evaluating control interventions and the impact of infectious diseases. It is important to understand how individuals move and gather within indoor spaces as early awareness of specified strategies act as decision-making tools to riskier alternatives. On university campuses, indoor spaces pose unique threats due to high traffic spaces in the building hallways, restrooms and bottleneck points that lead to mass congregation and therefore increased risk of transmission. Evaluation of infectious diseases transmission as a result of pedestrian dynamics (e.g., pedestrian density, crowding, queue and wait times) was used to determine time-varying social distancing during pedestrian interactions/movements. Multiple campus buildings were modeled to demonstrate environments with varying size and complexity. Building models were constructed using the pedestrian features of AnyLogic. The proposed solution makes the following contributions by tracking the control measures of pedestrian dynamics at the microscopic level through temporal and spatial separation. This is done by enforcing social distancing through reducing the number of individual occupants at one time (i.e., segmented student population) and staggering start and end arrival times.The two greatest risk factors in the models were time and space. Entrances and exits to buildings, classrooms, and restrooms, and other queues forced simulated agents to cross the danger threshold as these building features were physical bottlenecks. Model results demonstrated sharp, but brief increases in transmission due to not staggering class arrival and departure times. Results indicated that controlling scheduling or forcing space assignments/social distancing were effective in reducing contacts and risk of spreading disease; however, the greatest reduction in risk of disease transmission occurred when both methods were used in conjunction. When class arrival and departure times are staggered, transmission between people not in the same class is only possible during chance encounters due to restroom visits, late arrivals, or early departures.
Michael Schwartz, Cortnee Stainrod, Irin Nizam
Open Access
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Conference Proceedings
Bulgarian Public Administration’s Social Media Communications Strategies During COVID-19 Crisis
The global spread of COVID-19 transforms the communication practices not only of business structures, but also of state institutions. Numerous crisis situations arose for the public administration, which were both specific and requiring coordinating communication actions with local authorities and related ministries. The experts in public communications in the structures of the state administration carry out relations with media, building relations with non-governmental organizations and representatives of the civil sector, organizing visits, coordination with other institutions. Following the pandemic crisis, PR professionals and crisis managers had to develop digital skills and competencies for strategic planning and online public communication.Purpose: The aim of the study is to analyse the Bulgarian institutions crisis communication infrastructure during the pandemic. The study aims to 1) provide information on the practical challenges for PR experts in designing and implementing online crisis communication strategies on social media; 2) to review the quality and quantity of the published content in the Facebook profiles of the state administration; 3) to present a conceptual framework for the quality of the communication strategies of the PA during a crisis.Methodology: The research methodology is based on of both qualitative and quantitative methods: 1) theoretical sources and research for peculiarities of the communication in the structures of the public administration, crisis communication in the public administration are analysed; 2) by the method of case study a qualitative analysis of the official Facebook profiles of 17 ministries and municipalities was made; 3) a representative empirical study was conducted with 182 communication specialists working in the Bulgarian public administration.Findings: The study identifies the most common crisis situations caused by the pandemic and systematizes traditional and online communication techniques. The results of the survey summarize the three stages of crisis communication management: 1) preliminary preparation (pre-crisis); 2) Crisis phase and response; 3) post-crisis period.Research limitations: Our study covers only the structures of the state administration in Bulgaria. The period of case analysis is March – December 2020, when a state of emergency was declared in Bulgaria. The questionnaire was distributed only among communication specialists in municipal and state structures to achieve maximum accuracy in answering specialized questions.Originality: This is the first study in Bulgaria that highlights good practices and deficits in communication strategies of Bulgarian institutions during crisis.Discussion: The study raises research questions about the online communication strategies of the Bulgarian institutions during the pandemic and about the digital competencies of the communication specialists in the public administration.Conclusion: Deficits have been registered in terms of online communication strategies - there is no clear identification of stakeholders and vulnerable groups, the quality of the created online content is low, and in a number of institutions it is missing.
Ivan Valchanov, Stella Angova, Maria Nikolova, Iliya Valkov, Violeta Zlatkova, Krassimira Valcheva, Boryana Marinkova
Open Access
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Service Disruptions and Recovery: Lessons from the Chinese hotel industry for the post-COVID-19 Era
Ever since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic in early 2020, it has had an impact on all industries globally, especially the tourism and hotel sector. China’s hotel industry was one of the first to experience the challenge related to COVID-19. However, due to early interventions, Chinese hotels are on a faster recovery route than many other global markets. This study examined the relationship between customers' perception of COVID-19 and factors that affect hotel service quality. Through a Chinese online crowdsourcing platform, this study obtained 429 samples from participants who stayed in hotels before and during the pandemic. This study aims to serve as a reference for hotel service innovation and guide hotel managers on how to improve customer experience in the post-pandemic era.
Zi Yang, Kin Wai Michael Siu, Yushan Huang
Open Access
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Conference Proceedings
COVID Choices: Research and Online System for Main Street Decision Making
During the spring of 2020 ChoiceFlows Inc. (Choiceflows) researchers document an approach for small and medium-sized businesses to make informed decisions about equitable and resilient reopening after COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns and restrictions. The client is 501(c)(3) chartered Restart Partners in Washington State and their client, the State of Washington Department of Commerce. After several revisions, an agreement is signed on December 30, 2020 to make the approach real with development and deployment in 2021 using Cares Act Grant money from the U.S. Federal Government. The result is Smart WA – and can be freely accessed online here: https://smartwa.us Smart WA is the result of unique primary research conducted by Choiceflows involving citizens and residents of Washington State, and many days of secondary research finding publicly available data sources and bringing them together in one place to provide both comprehensive and easier to use data to make informed decisions. The research behind Smart WA is the first study to comprehensively examine how specific COVID-19 transmission reduction actions influence planned visits to different types of businesses. Data on Smart WA is organized by Human Health, Economic Health, and Community Experience metrics – and displayed as composite scores. The entire online system is powered by Tanjo.ai machine learning, a Choiceflows business partner, and is updated from all data sources daily.The advent of the COVID pandemic disrupts a wide range of businesses that directly serve the public and causes a dramatic fall in visits to these establishments. Businesses face a wide range of options in how to respond ranging from the pre-pandemic status quo and doing nothing to prevent the spread of the virus to shutting down businesses due to a lack of customers.Recognizing this, Smart WA has a “what-if” game-like section that allows a business to model the choices that they can make for reopening, and what they can expect from customers based on real data from people in the state. The relevant question from a small business perspective is: If we take an action or actions that influence COVID-19 transmission and make it known to our customers, how will that influence those customers to visit? The research supporting this function was conducted in four waves of surveys designed and administered during 2021, making it one of the most comprehensive research programs of its type during COVID with snapshots of customer preferences being collected over several month intervals.We document the development of this COVID Choices research using the Choiceflows pioneered Volumetric Choice Experiment (VCE) method and design and in parallel the online system. This provides a platform for projecting how the insights and methods from this work can be used for other issues facing small and medium size businesses to aid in and speed decision making and choice. This includes and dashboards for policymakers and main street for allocating resources for commerce, including economic development, ongoing community health, and supporting quality of life indicators.
Kevin Clark, Jordan Louviere, Richard Carson
Open Access
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Conference Proceedings
Impact of Globally Fair COVID-19 Vaccination: An Analysis based on Agent-Based Simulation
In this paper, an Agent-Based Model (ABM) is proposed to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 vaccination drive in different settings. The main focus is to evaluate the counter-effectiveness of disparity in vaccination drive among different regions/countries. The proposed model is simple yet novel in the sense that it captures the spatial transmission-induced activity into consideration, through which we are able to relate the transmission model to the mutated variations of the virus. Some important what-if questions are asked in terms of the number of deaths, the time required, and the percentage of population needed to be vaccinated before the pandemic is eradicated. The simulation results have revealed that it is necessary to maintain a global (rather than regional or country-oriented) vaccination provisioning in case of a new pandemic or continual efforts against COVID-19, instead of a self-centered approach.A simplistic agent-based model of virus transmission is used consisting of minimal states of susceptible, vaccinated, infected, and recovered. A moving agent in one of these states is tightly bound to the underlying space, where the space is divided into regions to evaluate the region-based vs. global vaccination drive. Additionally, the virus gets mutated, where the extent of mutation is directly related to spatial activity representing the transmissions. And the inactivity is directly proportional to the mutated variant at a location. The results of the simulation suggest that it is necessary to maintain a global (rather than regional or country-oriented) vaccination drive in case of a new pandemic or continual efforts against COVID-19. It results in a lesser number of deaths, time, and quantity of vaccination required.
Kashif Zia, Muhammad Shafi
Open Access
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Risk of COVID-19 infection and prevention and control strategies in universities
At the beginning of 2020, a sudden COVID-19 outbreak swept the world. So far, more than 300 million people worldwide have been infected with COVID-19 virus. Although the successful development of the COVID-19 virus vaccine has brought a great turnaround to the early stage of epidemic prevention and control.However, when the discovery of asymptomatic infected people, cold chain transmission routes, the emergence of novel coronavirus mutation and many other situations, the world faces new challenges.As a place with dense personnel flow and frequent contact in universities, infection cases will be more prone to the rapid spread of the epidemic, causing very serious social problems.Studying the relationship between the transmission rate of the campus epidemic and the prevention and control measures is the need of formulating efficient campus epidemic prevention and control strategies.Prediction the spread of novel coronavirus using the infectious disease model is an important means to study the spread of COVID-19 and make prevention and control decisions.This study mainly studied the risk of infection and prevention and control strategies.In the aspect of infection risk analysis, with the student dormitory of a university as the research object, five levels of campus epidemic prevention and control strategies were first established, and then through the establishment of healthy person-infection (SI) infection model based on statistics and probability judgment, the transmission speed of the epidemic under different epidemic prevention strategies was investigated.Then, the diffusion situation of the epidemic was simulated. Taking two dormitory buildings A and B as an example, the simulation results of dormitory students under vaccination and non-vaccination and different levels of prevention and control measures were analyzed to find out the key factors for the prevention and control of the epidemic.To provide help for the implementation of epidemic prevention and control strategies in colleges and universities.
Hang Shang, Wenbo Liu, Yuhuan Li
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