COVID-19 related messaging, beliefs, information sources, and mitigation behaviors in Virginia: a cross-sectional survey in the summer of 2020.

Background: Conflicting messages and misleading information related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic (SARS-CoV-2) have hindered mitigation efforts. It is important that trust in evidence-based public health information be maintained to effectively continue pandemic mitigation strategies. Officials, researchers, and the public can benefit from exploring how people receive information they believe and trust, and how their beliefs influence their behaviors. Methods: To gain insight and inform effective evidence-based public health messaging, we distributed an anonymous online cross-sectional survey from May to July, 2020 to Virginia residents, 18 years of age or older. Participants were surveyed about their perceptions of COVID-19, risk mitigation behaviors, messages and events they felt influenced their beliefs and behaviors, and where they obtained information that they trust. The survey also collected socio-demographic information, including gender, age, race, ethnicity, level of education, income, employment status, occupation, changes in employment due to the pandemic, political affiliation, sexual orientation, and zip code. Analyses included specific focus on the most effective behavioral measures: wearing a face mask and distancing in public. Results: Among 3,488 respondents, systematic differences were observed in information sources that people trust, events that impacted beliefs and behaviors, and how behaviors changed by socio-demographics, political identity, and geography within Virginia. Characteristics significantly associated (p < 0.025) with not wearing a mask in public included identifying as non-Hispanic white, male, Republican political identity, younger age, lower income, not trusting national science and health organizations, believing one or more non-evidence-based messages, and residing in Southwest Virginia in logistic regression. Similar, lesser in magnitude correlations, were observed for distancing in public. Conclusions: This study describes how information sources considered trustworthy vary across different populations and identities, and how these differentially correspond to beliefs and behaviors. This study can assist decision makers and the public to improve and effectively target public health messaging related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and future public health challenges in Virginia and similar jurisdictions.

Toward a moral reckoning on structural racism: Examining structural factors, encouraging structural thinking, and supporting structural intervention.

The racial reckoning of 2020 involved the largest social movement protest in U.S. history, but support for the Black Lives Matter movement declined shortly after. To advance a moral reckoning on structural racism that dismantles racialized structures and redresses racial inequities, we call on scholar activists within the field of community psychology to realign their own practices by (a) examining structural factors; (b) encouraging structural thinking; and (c) supporting structural intervention for racial justice. Two structural factors-political determinants and commercial determinants-maintain the status quo of structural racism, undermining efforts for racial equity. As a result, we encourage the development of structural thinking, which provides a structural analysis of racism and leads to support for structural intervention. With an intersectional race and class perspective, we detail how structural thinking could be developed among the professional managerial class (through structural competency) and among the oppressed class (through critical consciousness). Finally, we discuss structural intervention factors and approaches that can redress racial inequities and produce structural change. Ultimately, we provide a pathway for community psychologists to support activists building a multiracial, multiclass coalition to eliminate structures and systems of racial, political, and economic injustice.

Understanding the Relationship between Food Security and Mental Health for Food-Insecure Mothers in Virginia.

Food insecurity, which disproportionately impacts mothers, can have chronic consequences on physical and mental health. There is a relationship between food insecurity and mental health, but the relationship's mechanisms are unclear. This study aimed to understand how mental health outcomes differ by food insecurity severity and race among Virginia mothers. A cross-sectional survey employed previously validated food security status measures, physical and mental health, social support, and food coping strategies. Results were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Spearman's rank-order correlations, linear regression, and chi-squared with effect sizes. Overall, respondents (n = 1029) reported worse mental health than the U.S. average (44.3 ± 10.1 and 50, respectively). There was a large effect of food security on mental health (d = 0.6), with worse mental health outcomes for mothers experiencing very low food security (VLFS) than low food security (LFS; p < 0.001). There was a small effect of race on mental health (φc = 0.02), with Black mothers having better mental health than White mothers (p < 0.001). Compared to mothers experiencing LFS, mothers experiencing VLFS had less social support (d = 0.5) and used more food coping strategies, especially financial strategies (d = −1.5; p < 0.001). This study suggests that food-insecure mothers experience stressors and lack adequate social support, which is even more distinct for mothers experiencing VLFS.

Evolution of tumefactive lesions in multiple sclerosis: a 12-year study with serial imaging in a single patient.

We describe the acute presentation and the long-term evolution of recurrent tumefactive lesions (TLs) in a patient with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. Five TLs occurred on three different occasions over a period of 12 years and these were followed by 73 serial magnetic resonance images (MRI). TL evolution was described by means of magnetization transfer imaging (MTI) and cerebrospinal fluid tissue specific imaging (TSI) over the follow-up period. During the study period, the patient had three clinical relapses with only minimal disability progression. MTI demonstrated that only the peripheral portion of each TL reverted to pre-lesional MT ratios within six months' post-enhancement. Recurring TLs may present a similar pattern of evolution that may be associated with a long-term favourable clinical outcome.