key: cord-0990572-zbbnnure
authors: Tang, Pok Man; Zhang, Stephen Xu; Li, Chi Hon; Wei, Feng
title: Geographical identification of the vulnerable groups during COVID‐19 crisis: Psychological typhoon eye theory and its boundary conditions
date: 2020-07-17
journal: Psychiatry Clin Neurosci
DOI: 10.1111/pcn.13114
sha: fc8e1fc1ec74586313b083d180c04ab6e261acfc
doc_id: 990572
cord_uid: zbbnnure

nan

Psychological typhoon eye theory and its boundary conditions has been deteriorating people's wellbeing, as shown in a rapid increase in people's burnout or distress across different countries. 1 2 Many mental health services aim to help people at the epicenter, following the principle of "ripple effect" 3 as in the epidemics of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Ebola. 4 5 Yet, drawing from psychological typhoon eye theory [6] [7] [8] , the unprecedented scale of COVID-19 pandemic prompts us to suspect that individuals' well-being might deteriorate over the distance from the epicenter (i.e., the center of an epidemic area). Identifying the vulnerable regions where individuals are more likely to suffer from wellbeing issues helps direct attention towards the more vulnerable groups during the ongoing pandemic.

To help better screen for such vulnerable groups of people during the COVID-19 crisis, we examine typhoon eye theory and at which conditions it is useful. Specifically, we submit the typhoon effect was useful among younger adults and those with certain family status.

We sent a survey to 410 working adults staying in various cities in China right on February 20-21, 2020. 9 10 The survey assessed their gender, age, education, family status, job status, location, and the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS). Among the 308 of them who responded, we used their locations to calculate their distance to Wuhan, the COVID-19 epicenter in China, ranged 0-2126 km. We used multiple linear regression to predict life satisfaction (Table 1) .

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. The association between the distance to the epicenter and life satisfaction depended on the age and family status. As illustrated in Figure S1a The association was insignificant for the rest groups.

Practically, our findings combine geographical and demographic information of participants to help identify the vulnerable individuals. We revealed that the typhoon eye effect, i.e. the further people are away from the epicenter, the lower their life satisfaction, was significant only for adults who were younger or had smaller families. Our results suggest that This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Page mental health services cannot solely use typhoon eye effect as the only geographical information to identify those with low life satisfaction.

This study focuses on a single epicenter, which is often but not always the case for an epidemic. Wuhan was the clear epicenter of COVID-19 in China. Yet, South Korea simultaneously had several epicenters. Future research may explore epidemics with multiple epicenters, exploring the effect of the minimum, median, maximum, or the average (weighted by cases) distance from the multiple epicenters.

In sum, this study provides insights on using typhoon eye theory and its boundary conditions to identify people more vulnerable to well-being impairment during the pandemic of COVID-19. Our research calls for more nuanced understanding of how to use geographical and demographic information to identify the vulnerable individuals during the pandemic of COVID-19. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Figure S1 Figure S1(a). The association between distance to the epicenter and life satisfaction by individuals' age Figure S1 (b). The association between distance to the epicenter and life satisfaction by individuals' family status This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Distance to the epicenter @ Others (e.g. divorced/widowed) 1.492 (0.825, 2.160) <0.001

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