Assessing the Transitional Impact of Adverse Public Events and Associated Mental Health Consequences
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Major public events like the COVID-19 pandemic and natural disasters profoundly impact the lives of large groups of people. These events often produce economic hardship, social disruption, and psychological distress that can be long-lasting. Moreover, these events indicate significant changes in people's lives. To elaborate, these calamitous public events can indicate transition– a synchronized, fundamental change in the fabric-of-daily life, in what people do, where they do it, and with whom. Therefore, the aim of the current thesis was to investigate: (a) the nature and extent of the transition caused by COVID-19 pandemic and natural disasters, (b) the impact of the pandemic- or disaster-specific transition, (c) the effect of the pandemic-or-disaster on individuals’ mental-health, and (d) the relationship between the effect of pandemic-or-disaster brought transition and mental-health. This was accomplished in four studies. Chapter 1 provides a general introduction of the potential transitional properties of the pandemic and natural disaster, and how this pandemic- or disaster-related transition can affect the lives and mental-health of individuals. Here, an overview of the research findings related to transition, pandemic, disaster, and mental-health was provided. For simplicity, Chapter 1 is split into two-parts. The first-part discusses the COVID-19 pandemic, and the second-part discusses natural disasters. Chapter 2 (Study-1) reports the results of a cross-sectional survey of Canada-US adults conducted between March 24 and 30, 2020, at the COVID-19 pandemic onset. This study examined the immediate effect of the pandemic-brought transition, pandemic’s impact on mental-health, and the degree to which the two were related. The results indicated that at early stage, the pandemic produced: only moderate material and psychological change, and mild-to-moderate distress; job-loss people experienced more change and more distress than those who did not; material and psychological change were associated with depression and stress while anxiety was associated with only psychological change. Chapter 3 (Study-2) describes the findings of a longitudinal survey of Canada-US and Turkish adults compared across four time-points (March 2020 – April 2022). Study-2 examined the long-term transitional effects brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, its impact on mental-health, and the extent of their association. The results demonstrated that as time progressed, the pandemic: produced only moderate material and psychological change for both groups, although Turkey experienced more changes during the onset while North America experienced more changes later; both groups experienced mild-to-moderate distress while Turkey experienced more distress at the outset than North America; material and psychological changes were reliably associated with distress in North America, whereas in Turkey, only material change was reliably associated with distress. Chapter 4 (Study-3) reports the results of a longitudinal survey of Southern Alberta, Canada residents, who experienced the 2013 flood. This follow-up study was conducted in 2019. It assessed the long-term transitional impacts of the Southern Alberta flood of 2013 and the relationship between this disaster-specific transition and mental-health. The results indicated that respondents reported lower material and psychological change in 2019 than in 2013. After six-years, post-traumatic-stress had a high correlation with material and psychological change; however, depression and anxiety were reliably related to psychological change only. Chapter 5 (Study-4) describes the outcomes of a longitudinal survey of British Columbia, Canada, and Western Germany residents who experienced the 201 wildfire and flood, respectively. Study-4 examined the transitional effect of the BC-fire and Germany-flood, and the associated mental-health consequences, immediately after the disasters and a year later. The results demonstrated that Germany-flood produced higher material and psychological change in 2021 than 2022; BC-fire produced higher psychological change in 2021 than 2022, but produced modest material change in both time-points. Also, the BC-fire group reported greater distress in 2021 than 2022, and the Germany-flood group reported moderate-to-severe distress in both waves; neither group experienced PTSD-like symptoms. Moreover, in both groups, evacuees experienced more change and distress than non-evacuees. Furthermore, over time, only psychological changes were reliably associated with distress in both groups. Chapter 6 provides a general summary of the findings and discusses the importance and implications of short- and long-term life changes brought by calamitic public events (COVID-19 pandemic, natural disasters) and their relationship with mental-health outcomes. Particularly, the present findings highlight the potential to enhance the understanding of long-term recovery needs after a crisis, for both communities and the individuals living within them.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.010 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".