Health, distress, and life satisfaction of people one-month into COVID-19 outbreak in China

Stephen X Zhang; Yifei Wang; Andreas Rauch; Feng Wei

The study has certain limitations. First, this study relied on an observational survey. Because the measures of the dependent variables of SF12, distress and life satisfaction used Likert scales, we tried to use predictors that were non-Likert scales, such as job status and severity of COVID-19 calculated based on archival data using the reported locations. Second, our sample is not a national representative sample. Our focus was to examine the differential effects on adults depending on the level of disruption, as captured by their job status, existing chronic issues, and exercise levels to identify who in the community of non-COVID-19 cases might need the most help for policymakers and potential caregivers. Third, even though we had data from people who had not been working even before the outbreak started (8.7%) and people who went out of work during the outbreak (1.6%), the sample size of those two groups was small and we are cautious not to report them in the findings.