College of Behavioral & Social Sciences

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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations..

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Subject: search.filters.subject.COVID-19

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Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Impact of COVID-19 on Parent and Child Mental Health in India: A Mixed-methods Longitudinal Study
    (2023) Havewala, Mazneen Cyrus; Wang, Cixin; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The COVID-19 pandemic has affected individuals around the world. Parents of young children have experienced significant strain as they have attempted to balance their work obligations as well as take care of household duties and attend to the needs of their young children. Several studies have demonstrated the detrimental impacts of COVID-19 on parent and child mental health. However, the majority of studies are quantitative, cross-sectional in nature, and were conducted during the early phases of the pandemic. Moreover, there is limited work on the topic of parent and child mental health within the COVID-19 context among families in India. Thus, the current mixed-methods longitudinal study aimed to fill these gaps in the literature by attempting to examine the impact of COVID-19 on child mental health and parent mental health among families with young children in India. The study also aimed to understand the moderating effects of parenting behaviors with relation to child COVID-19-related stress and child mental health difficulties, and the moderating effects of social support with relation to parent COVID-19-related stress and parent mental health difficulties. One hundred and forty parents of children between the ages of 4 to 8 completed a survey between October 2020 and February 2021 (Time 1), of which 85 parents completed it between May 2021 and July 2021 (Time 2), and 70 completed it between July 2022 and October 2022 (Time 3). Qualitative in-depth individual interviews were conducted with a subset of the sample (n=20) between July 2022 and December 2022 to gain a better understanding of challenges experienced by parents and how the pandemic impacted them and their children in various ways over the course of the pandemic. The findings indicated that the stress caused by changes brought about by the pandemic was related to parent and child mental health in India. Parents in India experienced several challenges that impacted their mental health. Factors contributing to those challenges, and in turn, possibly their mental health are discussed. Parenting behaviors such as parental nurturance and restrictiveness were also related to child mental health and served as moderators of the relation between child COVID-19-related stress and child mental health difficulties; parental nurturance emerged as a protective factor while parental restrictiveness was a possible risk factor. Perceived social support was negatively linked with parent mental health difficulties, and it also served as a buffer in the relation of parent COVID-19-related stress and parent mental health difficulties at Time 1. Qualitative findings also indicated that support from spouse, other family members, friends and co-workers helped parents cope with the challenges associated with the pandemic. In sum, the findings of this study helped identify important risk and protective factors for parent and child mental health within the COVID-19 context in India. The findings have important clinical implications that inform future intervention efforts to support children and families during related stressful events.
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    CYCLING AROUND THE CLOCK: MODELING BIKE SHARE TRIPS AS HIGH-FREQUENCY SPATIAL INTERACTIONS
    (2023) Liu, Zheng; Oshan, Taylor; Geography/Library & Information Systems; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Spatial interactions provide insights into urban mobility that reflects urban livability. A range of traditional and modern urban mobility models have been developed to analyze and model spatial interaction. The study of bike-sharing systems has emerged as a new area of research, offering expanded opportunities to understand the dynamics of spatial interaction processes. This dissertation proposes new methods and frameworks to model and understand the high-frequency changes in the spatial interaction of a bike share system. Three challenges related to the spatial and temporal dynamics of spatial interaction within a bike share system are discussed via three studies: 1) Predicting spatial interaction demand at new stations as part of system infrastructure expansion; 2) Understanding the dynamics of determinants in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic; and 3) Detecting events that lead to changes in the spatial interaction process of bike share trips from a model-based proxy. The first study proposes a hybrid strategy to predict 'cold start' trips by comparing flow interpolation and spatial interaction methods. The study reveals 'cold start' stations with different classifications based on their locations have different best model choices as a hybrid strategy for the research question. The second study demonstrates a disaggregated comparative framework to capture the dynamics of determinants in bike share trip generation before, during, and after the COVID-19 lockdown and to identify long-term bike share usage behavioral changes. The third study investigates an event detection approach combining martingale test and spatial interaction model with specification evaluation from simulated data and explorative examination from bike share datasets in New York City, Washington, DC, and San Francisco. Results from the study recognize events from exogenous factors that induced changes in spatial interactions which are critical for model evaluation and improvement toward more flexible models to high-frequency changes. The dissertation elaborated and expanded the spatial interaction model to more effectively meet the research demands for the novel transportation mode of bike-share cycling in the context of a high-frequency urban environment. Taken as a whole, this dissertation contributes to the field of transportation geography and geographic information science and contributes methods toward the creation of improved transport systems for more livable cities.
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    Global trends and predictors of face mask usage during the COVID-19 pandemic
    (Springer Nature, 2021-11-15) Badillo-Goicoechea, Elena; Chang, Ting-Hsuan; Kim, Esther; LaRocca, Sarah; Morris, Katherine; Deng, Xiaoyi; Chiu, Samantha; Bradford, Adrianne; Garcia, Andres; Kern, Christoph; Cobb, Curtiss; Kreuter, Frauke; Stuart, Elizabeth A.
    Guidelines and recommendations from public health authorities related to face masks have been essential in containing the COVID-19 pandemic. We assessed the prevalence and correlates of mask usage during the pandemic. We examined a total of 13,723,810 responses to a daily cross-sectional online survey in 38 countries of people who completed from April 23, 2020 to October 31, 2020 and reported having been in public at least once during the last 7 days. The outcome was individual face mask usage in public settings, and the predictors were country fixed effects, country-level mask policy stringency, calendar time, individual sociodemographic factors, and health prevention behaviors. Associations were modeled using survey-weighted multivariable logistic regression. Mask-wearing varied over time and across the 38 countries. While some countries consistently showed high prevalence throughout, in other countries mask usage increased gradually, and a few other countries remained at low prevalence. Controlling for time and country fixed effects, sociodemographic factors (older age, female gender, education, urbanicity) and stricter mask-related policies were significantly associated with higher mask usage in public settings. Crucially, social behaviors considered risky in the context of the pandemic (going out to large events, restaurants, shopping centers, and socializing outside of the household) were associated with lower mask use. The decision to wear a face mask in public settings is significantly associated with sociodemographic factors, risky social behaviors, and mask policies. This has important implications for health prevention policies and messaging, including the potential need for more targeted policy and messaging design.
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    Gender Minority Young Adult Mental Health: Anti-Transgender Prejudice, Mediators, and Implications in the COVID-19 Era
    (2020) Pease, M; Iwamoto, Derek
    Binary and nonbinary transgender young adults exist in a state of marginalization in American society. Both interpersonal and institutional forms of prejudice, discrimination, and oppression against trans individuals have created a myriad of mental and physical health disparities in this population. Yet, limited research has examined the mechanisms of risk for transgender young adults. Moreover, the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic may exacerbate risk for marginalized groups. Using a minority stress framework and online cross-sectional survey design (N = 239), the current study examines gender dysphoria, emotion dysregulation, and relational authenticity as mediators of the relationship between transgender distal stress and negative mental health outcomes (i.e., psychological distress, alcohol use, and e-cigarette use) during the early stages of the novel coronavirus pandemic (late May to early July 2020). Additional data examined stressors relating to the novel coronavirus pandemic. Findings suggest gender dysphoria and emotion dysregulation mediate the distal stress-psychological distress pathway. An indirect effect of relational authenticity on alcohol use and gender dysphoria on e-cigarette use was also observed. Results are contextualized within the COVID-19 pandemic and critical implications are drawn for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners.