Dataset Information

Public expectations about the impact of COVID-19 on climate action by citizens and government.

ABSTRACT: Since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis many have opinionated on how it may affect society's response to climate change. Two key questions here are how COVID-19 is expected to influence climate action by citizens and by the government. We answer these by applying topic modelling to textual responses from a survey of Spanish citizens. The identified topics tend to be more negative than positive, and more optimistic concerning future climate action by citizens. Positive views involve increasing pro-environmental behavior and are more common among younger, higher educated and male respondents as well as among those who perceive climate change as a serious threat or positively assessed COVID-19 confinement. Negative topics express concern that financial resources for climate action will be limited due to a focus on healthcare and economic recovery. In addition, they mention government mismanagement and waste due to use of protective measures like masks and gloves as impediments to effective climate action.

SUBMITTER: Savin I

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9182260 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Public expectations about the impact of COVID-19 on climate action by citizens and government.

Savin Ivan I Drews Stefan S van den Bergh Jeroen J Villamayor-Tomas Sergio S

PloS one 20220609 6

Since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis many have opinionated on how it may affect society's response to climate change. Two key questions here are how COVID-19 is expected to influence climate action by citizens and by the government. We answer these by applying topic modelling to textual responses from a survey of Spanish citizens. The identified topics tend to be more negative than positive, and more optimistic concerning future climate action by citizens. Positive views involve increasing pro ...[more]

PMID: 35679285

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundThe government is the main body in charge of controlling epidemics; hence, expectations from the intention and capacities of the government would affect the flexibility and behaviors of citizens. Given the severity of COVID-19 pandemic and the urgent need for cooperation of people in the prevention and combat processes, understanding the public perspectives would be crucial and instructive. This study aimed to explore such perspectives towards the current pandemic among the Iranian. Indeed, we sought to provide a favorable platform for effective policies in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic through recognizing public expectations.MethodsThis cross-sectional survey used an open-ended online questionnaire to investigate the common perspectives of the Iranian towards the response of government to COVID-19 pandemic. The participants were selected using snowball and convenient sampling techniques across the country. The collected data were analyzed and described using a thematic analysis.ResultsIn general, 2547 participants agreed to participate in this study and completed the online questionnaire. According to the findings, the Iranian exhibited several expectations regarding the response of the government to COVID-19 pandemic. Three main themes were extracted based on these expectations: (1) health-related expectations, (2) policy-related expectations, and (3) Information-related expectations. In this study, a majority of participants highlighted the need to consider and follow-up the patients and their families, providing the financial and hygiene support during the pandemic, applying strict restrictions, and using close monitoring and controlling procedures. Furthermore, they mentioned that authorities and news agencies should observe the principals honesty and transparency.ConclusionsOur findings revealed that people expect the government and other responsible institutions to minimize the burden of this pandemic through adopting effective policies. Also, they could help policy-makers become aware of the expectations of people and develop better strategies.

Project description:Following the outbreak of COVID-19, governments took unprecedented measures to curb the spread of the virus. Public participation in decisions regarding (the relaxation of) these measures has been notably absent, despite being recommended in the literature. Here, as one of the exceptions, we report the results of 30,000 citizens advising the government on eight different possibilities for relaxing lockdown measures in the Netherlands. By making use of the novel method Participatory Value Evaluation (PVE), participants were asked to recommend which out of the eight options they prefer to be relaxed. Participants received information regarding the societal impacts of each relaxation option, such as the impact of the option on the healthcare system. The results of the PVE informed policymakers about people's preferences regarding (the impacts of) the relaxation options. For instance, we established that participants assign an equal value to a reduction of 100 deaths among citizens younger than 70 years and a reduction of 168 deaths among citizens older than 70 years. We show how these preferences can be used to rank options in terms of desirability. Citizens advised to relax lockdown measures, but not to the point at which the healthcare system becomes heavily overloaded. We found wide support for prioritising the re-opening of contact professions. Conversely, participants disfavoured options to relax restrictions for specific groups of citizens as they found it important that decisions lead to "unity" and not to "division". 80% of the participants state that PVE is a good method to let citizens participate in government decision-making on relaxing lockdown measures. Participants felt that they could express a nuanced opinion, communicate arguments, and appreciated the opportunity to evaluate relaxation options in comparison to each other while being informed about the consequences of each option. This increased their awareness of the dilemmas the government faces.

Project description:BackgroundIn the United States, all 50 state governments deployed publicly viewable dashboards regarding the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) to track and respond to the pandemic. States dashboards, however, reflect idiosyncratic design practices based on their content, function, and visual design and platform. There has been little guidance for what state dashboards should look like or contain, leading to significant variation.ObjectivesThe primary objective of our study was to catalog how information, system function, and user interface were deployed across the COVID-19 state dashboards. Our secondary objective was to group and characterize the dashboards based on the information we collected using clustering analysis.MethodsFor preliminary data collection, we developed a framework to first analyze two dashboards as a group and reach agreement on coding. We subsequently doubled coded the remaining 48 dashboards using the framework and reviewed the coding to reach total consensus.ResultsAll state dashboards included maps and graphs, most frequently line charts, bar charts, and histograms. The most represented metrics were total deaths, total cases, new cases, laboratory tests, and hospitalization. Decisions on how metrics were aggregated and stratified greatly varied across dashboards. Overall, the dashboards were very interactive with 96% having at least some functionality including tooltips, zooming, or exporting capabilities. For visual design and platform, we noted that the software was dominated by a few major organizations. Our cluster analysis yielded a six-cluster solution, and each cluster provided additional insights about how groups of states engaged in specific practices in dashboard design.ConclusionOur study indicates that states engaged in dashboard practices that generally aligned with many of the goals set forth by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Essential Public Health Services. We highlight areas where states fall short of these expectations and provide specific design recommendations to address these gaps.

Project description:BACKGROUND:It is unclear whether seasonal changes, school closures or other public health interventions will result in a slowdown of the current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We aimed to determine whether epidemic growth is globally associated with climate or public health interventions intended to reduce transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). METHODS:We performed a prospective cohort study of all 144 geopolitical areas worldwide (375 609 cases) with at least 10 COVID-19 cases and local transmission by Mar. 20, 2020, excluding China, South Korea, Iran and Italy. Using weighted random-effects regression, we determined the association between epidemic growth (expressed as ratios of rate ratios [RRR] comparing cumulative counts of COVID-19 cases on Mar. 27, 2020, with cumulative counts on Mar. 20, 2020) and latitude, temperature, humidity, school closures, restrictions of mass gatherings, and measures of social distancing during an exposure period 14 days previously (Mar. 7 to 13, 2020). RESULTS:In univariate analyses, there were few or no associations of epidemic growth with latitude and temperature, but weak negative associations with relative humidity (RRR per 10% 0.91, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.85-0.96) and absolute humidity (RRR per 5 g/m3 0.92, 95% CI 0.85-0.99). Strong associations were found for restrictions of mass gatherings (RRR 0.65, 95% CI 0.53-0.79), school closures (RRR 0.63, 95% CI 0.52-0.78) and measures of social distancing (RRR 0.62, 95% CI 0.45-0.85). In a multivariable model, there was a strong association with the number of implemented public health interventions (p for trend = 0.001), whereas the association with absolute humidity was no longer significant. INTERPRETATION:Epidemic growth of COVID-19 was not associated with latitude and temperature, but may be associated weakly with relative or absolute humidity. Conversely, public health interventions were strongly associated with reduced epidemic growth.

Dataset Information

Public expectations about the impact of COVID-19 on climate action by citizens and government.

Publications

Public expectations about the impact of COVID-19 on climate action by citizens and government.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets