Researching the Effect of COVID on Low-Income Families

by CHUCK WASSERSTROM

When you read the words “Department of Communication,” you might think about radio, TV, newspapers or social media.

Thoughts of COVID-19 studies conducted in a university setting probably evoke thoughts of departments such as nursing or public health.

But a faculty member in the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Department of Communication has been working on research that focuses on improving the quality of life for at-risk populations.

Assistant Professor Nagwan Zahry has been interested in health communication since her student days at Michigan State University. As a doctoral student, she worked as a research assistant collaborating with nursing, medicine and engineering faculty on a project linked to health, social media and messaging campaigns.

After joining the UTC faculty in August 2018, Zahry continued to pursue her passion for health communication by specifically looking at low-income families in different contexts such as eating behaviors, physical activity and mental health. The pandemic has allowed her to advance that research.

Zahry and her team recently conducted an analysis on stress management intervention among socio-economically disadvantaged families, which was published in the International Journal of Nursing Studies. A new study has Zahry and her team exploring how COVID-19 has affected lifestyle behaviors and mental health, she says, “and what coping strategies were helpful for dealing with challenges induced by COVID-19.

“I am leading a team to study the impact of COVID-19 on low-income parents with preschoolers aged 3 to 5 years old to provide an in-depth snapshot of this vulnerable population’s lived experience during the pandemic. It is the first study in the U.S. that looks at this topic.”

Results suggest that COVID-19 has profoundly changed low-income parents’ and their preschoolers’ lifestyle behaviors and mental health in many ways. Zahry’s study was based on a representative sample from around the country and included a total of 273 parents.

She explains that financial hardships and employment changes have reduced parents’ ability to cover basic living expenses such as utilities, rent and transportation, requiring them to cut back on food purchases with the resulting increases in food insecurity.

Some parents indicated problematic changes in their eating behaviors, including increases in food portions, high frequency of snacking, high intake of unhealthy food and eating because of boredom, all of which resulted in weight gain. In contrast, other parents shared positive changes such as healthier meals with the family, more time to plan and prepare food together and a higher intake of healthy food than before COVID-19.

“We find an increased physical activity in preschoolers but a decline among parents,” Zahry says.

She says that parents and their preschool children experienced poorer sleep quality, increased sleep disturbances and insomnia during the pandemic. Parents and preschoolers also experienced high levels of stress, anxiety and depression.

According to Zahry’s findings, COVID-19 has disproportionately intensified economic inequalities by severely impacting socioeconomically disadvantaged families. Increased unemployment and financial problems adversely affect low-income parents who resigned or were laid off from their jobs because they were caregivers for young children or older family members.

Zahry says she was surprised at the degree to which preschoolers aged 3 to 5 felt and suffered from the non-infection effects of COVID-19, finding evidence of the stress contagion, the association between a mother’s stress and her children’s mental health.

“As such, the mother’s stress was reflected in their children’s lack of sleep, increased anxiety, restlessness, anger and frustration,” Zahry says.

One finding is related to parents’ separation anxiety. She says her research found that parents who became accustomed to having their children at home during the COVID-19 lockdown “experienced high levels of anxiety after the reopening of daycare centers.”

As the pandemic continues, so do the research opportunities. Zahry is leading two studies related to families from different socio-economic backgrounds, with a particular focus on differences in the willingness to get vaccinated based on gender and race.

“One study is related to a persuasive communication campaign to promote the vaccine,” she says. “The second study is a theoretical paper to explore the health factors associated with people’s willingness to take the vaccine.”