Contrasting Perceptions of Community Resources: Neighborhood Features and Identification Amidst the Destabilizing Impact of COVID-19

• In Event: 20803 - Fragile Communities: Residents Coping with Shocks, Changes, and Inequities

Abstract

Introduction: We explore original qualitative data to better understand disparate views about
community resource availability and usefulness within a neighborhood heavily impacted by
COVID-19 cases and deaths within a Midwestern U.S. state.

Background: We identified the Hough neighborhood as a part of our larger Hardest Hit
Communities Project. That project collected data related to COVID-related community coping
and recovery in several Ohio communities that were especially affected by the health, social, and
economic impacts of COVID-19. The present study focuses on perceptions of community
resources and the impact of those perceptions on coping with after-effects of the pandemic,
based on in-depth data from the Hough neighborhood specifically.

Methods: We interviewed a sample of community members who expressed a genuine
connection to their community and were willing to share their experiences in the neighborhood,
with a particular emphasis on the impacts of and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Inductive analysis of these data follows a constructivist grounded theory approach.

Results: Our research illuminated strong connections between participants’ roles in their
community and their perceptions about the availability and usefulness of community resources.
We found that participants with formal organizational roles (e.g.: administrator, volunteer)
described resources as widely available but perhaps questionable in their ability to meet the
needs of all community members, while participants who did not have formal roles in
community organizations perceived resources to be fewer and less efficacious. Neighborhood
identification also seems to function as a link between social infrastructure and health/social
outcomes.

Discussion: Regardless of the objective capacity of these community organizations, further
understanding the divergent perspectives of local community members offers critical
opportunities to improve both our theoretical understanding of how to structure sufficient and
acceptable resources within structurally vulnerable communities, and our practical understanding
of how to meet community needs within Hough and related neighborhoods.

Authors

• Eoghan Quinn Victory, The Ohio State University

• Kristina Medero, University of Minnesota School of Public Health

• Tasleem Juana Padamsee, The Ohio State University