Impact of Pandemic on European Well-Being: Visualizing Scenarios from the SHARE Database

Abstract

The objective of this study is to analyse the effect of a pandemic shock on the well-being of the European population aged 50 or over. Data comes from wave 7 of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), carried out in 28 countries and representing over 170 million aged individuals in Europe. We start by designing two indicators in order to capture the risk of being unhealthy and economically vulnerable; next, we combine them with socio-demographic information and obtain the vulnerability profiles by means of the k-prototypes clustering algorithm. Subsequently, we design a shock similar to the COVID-19 pandemic and measure its effects on the vulnerability profiles. The results suggest that the average level of economic and health vulnerability is relatively low, although levels differ across European regions, with the most vulnerable being Eastern European countries. It was observed that the shock most affected countries with a greater proportion of individuals initially deemed vulnerable in terms of mental and physical health, as well as countries where tourism and retail sectors are the most vital for their economies. These findings led us to conclude that public policies should be differentiated by European regions, and Governments must establish action plans in order to better meet the physical and mental health needs of their citizens, as well as addressing monetary poverty and financial difficulties.

Looking for COVID side effects in the EU through the analysis of health and behavioural profiles

“…In this paper we propose an innovative approach, based on extremal observations, to obtain profiles or groups of homogeneus characteristics from survey data. One of the advantage is that the resulting profiles are easier to interpret than those estimated from central observations (like those obtained in other previous studies with SHARE database Grané et al 2020Grané et al , 2021. The protocol is based on three stages: First, composite indicators are designed, each of which focuses on a particular topic of interest; Second, the unsupervised statistical learning technique called archetypoidal analysis is applied on these indicators to obtain a few set of representative individuals (called archetypoids), and next the dataset is partitioned around the archetypoids by using Mahalanobis distance; Finally, the resulting clusters are analysed and visualized by means of other descriptive variables of interest, not included in the design of the indicators.…”

Global Food Security, Economic and Health Risk Assessment of the COVID-19 Epidemic

“…In addition, physical disturbance due to an outbreak of COVID-19 have a drastically negative effect on the mental health of the elderly, including stress, anxiety and depression [51]. Most people with chronic illnesses have lost their jobs in specific sectors of the economy, such as tourism and retail [55]. The occurrence and spread of COVID-19 suggest that good governance structure, investment in HC infrastructure and learning from past epidemics have the most significant impact on the proper responses to proactive labour market strategies [56] and achieving decent work and economic growth [57].…”

Population with Long-Term Care Needs in Six Latin American Countries: Estimation of Older Adults Who Need Help Performing ADLs

“…Vestirse, incluyendo ponerse los zapatos y los calcetines 1 Caminar de un lado a otro de un cuarto Comer, por ejemplo, para cortar su comida 4 Acostarse y levantarse de la cama 3 Usar el excusado, incluyendo subirse y bajarse o ponerse en cuclillas 2 Preparar una comida caliente 6 Hacer compras de víveres/mandado 5 Tomar medicamentos (si toma alguno o tuviera que tomar alguno) 7 Manejar su dinero 8 5 It is able to prepare food 6 You are able to manage your own medications 7 Use of public transport or taxi Phone usage Dressing, including putting on shoes and socks 1 Walking back and forth in a room Eating, for example, to cut your food 4 Lying down and getting out of bed 3 Use the toilet, including getting on and off or squatting 2 Prepare a hot meal 6 Shopping for groceries 5 Taking medicines (if you take any or need to take one) 7 Managing your money 8 2,3,4 Activities for BADL index; 5,6,7,8 Activities for IADL index.…”

“…One of the current main challenges for Latin American governments is to respond to the demands associated with the rapid and unprecedented ageing of the populationwithin the next 25 years, there will be more older adults (65 years and over) than children (under 15 years) [1]. This demographic change will require resources and reforms of social security systems [2], and both the World Health Organization and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean have called on governments to develop long-term care (LTC) systems for older adults [3,4].…”