Elucidating the Determinants Between the Environment and Individuals’ Behaviors Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Post-COVID Era

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Background

Individuals’ behavior is considered to be impacted by the environment and molded by the interaction of certain environmental parameters and fundamental human traits. The COVID-19 epidemic had caused behavioral alterations. However, the impact of environmental characteristics (such as social, culture, neighborhood, and household) and related interconnections with both personal and demographic traits (such as biological sex, age, personality, and health concerns) has received relatively minimal attention. As the epidemic subsides, such transformed patterns may endure or revert to former patterns, with variations between population subgroups (such as the general population, patients, teenagers, expectant mothers, and the elderly). The existence or absence of multiple environmental parameters may influence the disparity. Recognizing these multiplex interactions between the environmental, behavioral patterns, and individuals may enable our societies’ readiness for the post-pandemic phase.

This research topic intends to shed light on the interactions between individual traits and environmental parameters with a spectrum of pandemic-influenced behaviors. Certain health-improving behaviors (including social connection and physical exercise) may have decreased throughout the epidemic environment, while others may have expanded (such as sedentary behaviors, screen time, and social media use). Particular environmental characteristics that were recognized as enhancers or barriers of specific behaviors before the COVID-19 outbreak may persist to interact throughout and after the epidemic. These investigations are critical for comprehending the overarching effect of the environment on individuals’ behavior. Individual preferences may also influence pandemic-induced behaviors which are influenced by an individual's societal setting. It would be possible to design communities and territories that encourage a healthy lifestyle while also being more resistant to epidemics of infectious diseases that may occur more frequently in the coming decades as a consequence of climatic transformation and urban development by conducting investigations on such behaviors, thereby providing evidence on how the interactions between individuals and the environment influence multiple health-related behaviors.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Impacts from one or more environmental characteristics such as neighborhood, households, schools, built environment, natural, social, or physical environment.

• Human behaviors of any aspects either clinical or non-clinical such as physical exercise, dietary patterns, smoking, cognitive functions, vaccination acceptance or reluctance, social networking usage, sociability, and sedentary behaviors.

• Individual differences such as biological sex, age, socioeconomic status, personality, health condition, and genetic susceptibility.

We welcome the researchers to explore the wider repercussions for healthcare practice, public health, policy-making, and urban planning, among other aspects.

Keywords: environment, pandemic, behavior, COVID-19

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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