Understanding Whole-Person Health and Resilience During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond: A Cross-sectional and Descriptive Correlation Study (Preprint)
Authors: Rajamani Sripriya , Austin Robin , Geiger-Simpson Elena , Jantraporn Ratchada , Park Suhyun , Monsen Karen A 
Published: May 2022

BACKGROUND

The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted an interest in whole-person health and emotional well-being. Informatics solutions through user-friendly tools such as mobile health apps offer immense value. Prior research developed a consumer-facing app MyStrengths + MyHealth using Simplified Omaha System Terms (SOST) to assess whole-person health. The MyStrengths + MyHealth app assesses strengths, challenges, and needs (SCN) for 42 concepts across four domains (My Living, My Mind and Networks, My Body, My Self-care; eg, <i>Income</i>, <i>Emotions</i>, <i>Pain</i>, and <i>Nutrition</i>, respectively). Given that emotional well-being was a predominant concern during the COVID-19 pandemic, we sought to understand whole-person health for participants with/without <i>Emotions</i> challenges.

OBJECTIVE

This study aims to use visualization techniques and data from attendees at a Midwest state fair to examine SCN overall and by groups with/without <i>Emotions</i> challenges, and to explore the resilience of participants.

METHODS

This cross-sectional and descriptive correlational study surveyed adult attendees at a 2021 Midwest state fair. Data were visualized using Excel and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics using SPSS.

RESULTS

The study participants (N=182) were primarily female (n=123, 67.6%), aged ≥45 years (n=112, 61.5%), White (n=154, 84.6%), and non-Hispanic (n=177, 97.3%). Compared to those without <i>Emotions</i> challenges, those with <i>Emotions</i> challenges were aged 18-44 (<i>P</i>&lt;.001) years, more often female (<i>P</i>=.02), and not married (<i>P</i>=.01). Overall, participants had more strengths (mean 28.6, SD 10.5) than challenges (mean 12, SD 7.5) and needs (mean 4.2, SD 7.5). The most frequent needs were in <i>Emotions</i>, <i>Nutrition</i>, <i>Income</i>, <i>Sleeping</i>, and <i>Exercising</i>. Compared to those without <i>Emotions</i> challenges, those with <i>Emotions</i> challenges had fewer strengths (<i>P</i>&lt;.001), more challenges (<i>P</i>&lt;.001), and more needs (<i>P</i>&lt;.001), along with fewer strengths for <i>Emotions</i> (<i>P</i>&lt;.001) and for the cluster of health-related behaviors domain concepts, <i>Sleeping</i> (<i>P</i>=.002), <i>Nutrition</i> (<i>P</i>&lt;.001), and <i>Exercising</i> (<i>P</i>&lt;.001). Resilience was operationalized as correlations among strengths for SOST concepts and visualized for participants with/without an <i>Emotions</i> challenge. Those without <i>Emotions</i> challenges had more positive strengths correlations across multiple concepts/domains.

CONCLUSIONS

This survey study explored a large community-generated data set to understand whole-person health and showed between-group differences in SCN and resilience for participants with/without <i>Emotions</i> challenges. It contributes to the literature regarding an app-aided and data-driven approach to whole-person health and resilience. This research demonstrates the power of health informatics and provides researchers with a data-driven methodology for additional studies to build evidence on whole-person health and resilience.