4.5 ANALYSES OF RESULTS

significant relationship between people who have adopted quarantine or social isolation

and the accumulated number of deaths. In other words, the cumulative number of deaths

from COVID-19 explains 22% of the variation in quarantine or social isolation.

The results that presented the lowest values of R2 relate the variables of cases and deaths

by COVID-19 and the total impact on the income of the interviewees, both having a value

of 0.05. Thus, there is an established relationship between the variables separately: the

information collected in the questionnaire has a strong correlation, as well as between the

two variables that relate the number of cases and deaths based on official numbers. There

is no high association when analyzing the relationships between variables together.

4.5 ANALYSES OF RESULTS

Answering the research questions that were asked in section 1.2.3:

• Do the results reflect how the impacts felt by the population as a result of the

pandemic?

Although the research has some limitations, which will be explained below, the results

were able to reflect some of the impacts felt by the population after the early onset of the

pandemic.

• Do the results reflect people's interest in Internet research in certain words related

to the pandemic?

Again, considering research limitations, some words that reflected the most affected items

in the search were related to the Google search pattern for the state of Rio de Janeiro.

The questionnaire initially had the prerogative of mapping in space impacts on Rio de

Janeiro's population daily life due to the pandemic of COVID-19. With the total evaluation

of the data obtained in the research, it was possible to perceive the spatial dynamics of the

responses to the survey by the 16 planning regions of Rio de Janeiro's city.

The mapping of most of the 15 questions asked in the survey was carried out, addressing

the spatial information obtained in different ways, relating to the demographic data of the

city, such as the official data related to COVID-19 concerning the number of cases and

deaths, and establishing a link between some impacts selected and the relevance of the

items questioned in Google searches.

As already mentioned, the questionnaire was not developed with the intention of

constituting a representative sample of the city. This limitation can be observed in how the

answers were obtained, more concentrated in certain regions of the city without reflecting

the planning regions' population density. This can be perceived visually in the observation

of the map shown in Figure 17.

The lack of relationship between the responses obtained and the reality was also observed

in the uneven distribution of answers by sex and age of the interviewees, which do not

reflect the proportion of these variables found in the city.

As mentioned, the planning region that obtained the highest number of responses to the

survey was region 2.2 (Tijuca). Consequently, it was the region with the highest number of

cases and deaths reported in the questionnaire. However, when compared with the official

data of cases and deaths by COVID-19, the region is in the eighth place among the 16

planning regions.

The region with the highest number of cases and deaths until the survey's end date was

region 2.1 (Zona Sul), the region with the highest concentration of income in the city and

the second region in terms of survey responses.

In addition, in the regions that are located on the west side of the city, such as 4.1

(Jacarepaguá) and 4.2 (Barra da Tijuca), there is not a high occurrence of responses and,

consequently, there are few reports of cases and deaths, despite the significant numbers

during the research application period.

On the other hand, in one region, there was no answer to the questionnaire (region 5.4 -

Guaratiba), and in three regions, the number of responses was relatively low (3.7 - Ilha do

Governador, 3.1 - Ramos, and 3.4 - Inhaúma). This situation ends up affecting comparisons

and hampers the establishment of connections that can be made between different

planning regions through the data obtained.

Among the maps presented, the one that reports the population density and the number

of responses (Figure 19) shows that six of the 15 planning regions that had responses have

a positive relationship between the variables, considering a low-low, medium-medium or

high-high correspondence between the observed values.

Regarding the number of cases and deaths obtained in the questionnaire and its

relationship with the official data (Figures 20, and 21 respectively), the map with the

number of deaths seems to present a greater adherence between research and what is

found in reality, with eight planning regions having a positive relationship. In the map that

shows the number of cases, the positive relationship between the variables occurs in 6

planning regions.

As the pandemic was still in its early stages, there were just under 5,500 deaths in the city

and only over 22,000 cases, high numbers compared to other realities in the world but still

considered low for the Brazilian experience. Thus, it was expected a low occurrence related

to deaths in the questionnaire.

As Antoniou et al. (2020) reported, constant disclosure is important in this type of initiative

because a decrease in the number of responses over the time the survey was available was

noticed. It is also necessary to consider the means of disseminating the research. As much

as the research has been disseminated in several online media platforms (social media), it

is necessary to recognize that a more significant number of responses could have brought

more robust results. Thus, the use of other media can be important for this type of

approach.

The lack of this consistency in the application of the survey can be seen in the graph below

(Figure 31), which is a graph obtained in the web version of Survey123. It is possible to

observe the variation in compiling answers throughout the period of application of the

survey, between April 7 and May 11, 2020. The moments when the dissemination

intensified appear in well-defined peaks in the graph and the effects of isolated campaigns

last a few days.

Figure 31. Graph with the answers obtained in Survey123.

There is also a bias in the sample obtained, which can be seen both in the concentration of

the points that were obtained (which became sparser towards the west), as well as in the

survey of information regarding the occupation (most of the stable workers) and regarding

the average income (very high by Brazilian standards). The exclusion of marginalized people

in this type of initiative, as already pointed out by Haworth & Bruce (2015), can be another

infortune imposition of the country's inequality.

This relationship between occupation and average income and the pandemic’s impact on

income can be seen in the map in Figure 22, in which the planning area that has the highest

level of income in the city, 2.1 (South Zone). The area has a high average income among

respondents, medium impact on income due to the pandemic and most people have a

stable occupation as their primary source of income.

As the pandemic was still beginning when the research was launched, there was a

significant lack of accurate information about the disease and a lack of mass testing. This

gap in knowledge may also have influenced how participants were responding to the

questionnaire, as many people ended up not being sure about the manifestation of the

disease because the symptoms were not well known, and testing was insufficient.

As for the items affected by the pandemic (Figure 23) and the responses to the affected

feelings (Figure 27), it is clear, in the first, that the pattern of responses may be related to

the bias of the constituted sample, considering that the most relevant item listed was

recreation.

When the questionnaire was applied, there was a shortage of masks for individual

protection and hand sanitizers, alongside the previously established problem of lack of

sanitation in the city. Even in this context, the category related to hygiene items ranked last

among the items considered affected within these groups.

Nonetheless, words that reflected the most affected items were related to Google's search

pattern for the state of Rio de Janeiro. In Google Trends, words related to education and

income or items reported as having suffered impacts by the pandemic’s outcome increased

in Google search during the survey period.

When it came to feelings provoked by the pandemic, anxiety and fear were words searched

within the survey’s availability period. However, concern, which was the most chosen

feeling among the interviewees, was not much sought. There was a peak in the search for

mental health a few months after the survey was applied.

Overall, the survey revealed that respondents suffered several impacts related to the

pandemic since the options of "none" that were present in both questions were chosen by

few interviewees.

The absence of a relationship between the variables obtained in the questionnaire and the

other variables used can be seen in the scatterplot matrix constructed between the

questionnaire's variables and the disease's official data.

What was found was that the variables in the questionnaire have a very high R2, meaning

a percentage in the relationship between variables in which one variable can explain the

variation of the other. When the questionnaire's variables are analyzed together with the

official data, this correlation becomes very fragile. Among them, the variables of cases and deaths by COVID-19 have a relevant R2 .

Regarding the questionnaire developed in Survey123, the limitation pointed out by Smith

(2017) was noticed when new questions were added after the feedback of the first round

of questions, since after a first publication the questionnaire cannot be modified.

In order to keep the first data in the same database even after updating with new

questions, a decision was made to keep the previous data, which required that a date and

location filter be made, considering also that in that second moment an option was made

to limit the questionnaire to the city of Rio de Janeiro.

Survey123 allows geographic limitation for a given location, but even if configured to do so

in XLSForm, respondents from outside the municipality could respond, which generates

later filtering work.

One of the advantages of this type of initiative, the speed of implementation, was observed

during the research application, and the items related to feelings and mental health were

suggestions of the first people who answered the questionnaire, having been quickly

incorporated into it in a second round, which this work proposes to analyze. However, it is

noticed that an approach to survey this type of information regarding mental health and

people’s daily life in GIS is not common in Brazilian reality.

There are some initiatives related to understanding some aspects of the pandemic, such as the online survey conducted by Fundação Oswaldo Cruz9 (FIOCRUZ) (2021), which is a

traditional health research institution in Brazil. An online survey was carried out in a similar

period to the present study (from April 24 to May 8, 2020) to understand some aspects of the pandemic, in which the results identified that 40% of people feel sad/depressed and that 54% reported feeling anxious/nervous frequently (Silva & Lobato, 2020). Despite

presenting perspectives associated with the one addressed in the present study, they do

not add the spatial component to their results.

9 Oswaldo Cruz Foundation