AltSU sociologists surveyed how the population of Altai Krai survived the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic

23 June 2021 Department of Information and Media Communications
The research team of the Institute of Social Sciences of the flagship Altai State University summed up the results of the project entitled "Social security of the population of Altai Krai during the COVID-19 pandemic."

Olga Surtaeva, Associate Professor of the Department of Psychology of Communications and Psychotechnology of the Institute of Social Sciences, Altai State University, Candidate of Sciences (Sociology) headed the team of researchers, which included teachers, postgraduates, and students of the Institute.

“We considered social practices and behaviors typical of people during a pandemic. For example, whether they protect themselves or not from the infection, what they do to improve their health, etc. In addition to behaviors, we studied people's attitudes to security, as well as their attitude to the actions of social institutions related to ensuring the security of society (medical, law enforcement agencies, the regional government, and so on), which measures they approve or disapprove of, and to what extent they follow the instructions and recommendations of these institutions,” clarified the scientific leader of the project.  “Summing up, we can say that residents of Altai Krai were not really frightened by the outbreak of the pandemic and the impact of the coronavirus on their health. They were mostly concerned about how the current conditions would affect their well-being and established way of life. They were worried about both the financial situation, earnings and keeping a job, as well as restrictions on freedom of movement, bans on visiting amusement facilities, cafes, and recreation places. That is, they did not make their health a priority.”

According to the results of the study, a subjective sense of security was marked by half of the region's population. Mostly they were residents of large cities, young people and those who had a stable socio-economic position, social status, and privileged positions in society. Also, this proportion included people with an average salary in the region and an income above the average.

Residents of Altai Krai with low wages, no permanent job and no material benefits were worried about the current situation.

As for working online, young people reacted calmly to this mode unlike people of the older generation. However, both generations agreed that it is very difficult to combine telecommuting and household chores. Most of the respondents expressed hope that this will not happen again.

“Our main goal was to analyze the features of the feeling and attitude to social security of the population of Altai Krai during the coronavirus pandemic, and whether this stage of world development in Altai Krai will be different from other territories,” explains Olga Surtaeva. “When we started to implement the project, we assumed that we would get more negative results, in particular, in relation to self-isolation of people, but it turned out that this did not lead to any special socio-psychological consequences. In general, the emotional and psychological state of the inhabitants of Altai Krai was not affected as a result of self-isolation! In brief, the region's population has steadfastly survived the 2020 pandemic. We did it!"

It is worth noting that the project "Social security of the population of Altai Krai during the COVID-19 pandemic" was among the winners of the competition for intra-university grants for young scientific and pedagogical workers, which was held at the flagship university of Altai Krai from March to April 2020.

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