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This study aims to validate the English version of a WHO-adapted questionnaire: Zika infection awareness/knowledge questionnaire using a unique dual-approach validation model.

A cross-sectional pilot study of 30 adult respondents in Malaysia completed the self-administered questionnaire on knowledge and perception to Zika infection. Construct validity was assessed by exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of SPSS and Rasch partial credit. Reliability is tested using pKR20 and Cronbach’s alpha.

Knowledge construct was unidimensional, good model fit, easy to endorse and well discriminative. Five-rating Likert scale for perception domain was appropriate. Knowledge domain should be separated into 6 level of difficulties. Perception domain should remain as one construct. Knowledge domain was highly reliability (pKR20 = 0.96), perception domain was fairly reliable (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.641). Respondent's ability to answer knowledge domain and perception domain were separated into 3 and 4 levels.

Small sample size may affect factor analysis.

The questionnaire has good psychometric properties to measure the knowledge and perception of Zika infection among Malaysian community.

The questionnaire helped to gauge knowledge and perception of the general community in Malaysia to aid preparation of health education tool for Zika infection.

This paper validated questionnaire with two biostatistical software programs in bidirectional approach – items difficulty and respondents' ability – is the first field test of WHO questionnaire among general population in Southeast Asia.

The authors examine the role of analysts’ prior experience of forecasting for firms exposed to epidemics on analysts’ forecast accuracy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors examine the impact of analysts’ prior epidemic experience on forecast accuracy by comparing the changes from the pre-COVID-19 period (calendar year 2019) to the post-COVID period extending up to March 2023 across HRE versus non-HRE analysts. The authors consider a full sample (194,980) and a sub-sample (136,836) approach to distinguish “Recent” forecasts from “All” forecasts (including revisions).

The study's findings reveal that forecast accuracy for HRE analysts is significantly higher than that for non-HRE analysts during COVID-19. Specifically, forecast errors significantly decrease by 0.6% and 0.15% for the “Recent” and “All” forecast samples, respectively. This finding suggests that analysts’ prior epidemic experience leads to an enhanced ability to assess the uncertainty around the epidemic, thereby translating to higher forecast accuracy.

The finding that the expertise developed through an experience of following high-risk firms in the past enhances analysts’ performance during the pandemic sheds light on a key differentiator that partially explains the systematic difference in performance across analysts. The authors also show that industry experience alone is not useful in improving forecast accuracy during a pandemic – prior experience of tracking firms during epidemics adds incremental accuracy to analysts’ forecasts during pandemics such as COVID-19.

The study findings should prompt macroeconomic policymakers at the national level, such as the central banks of countries, to include past epidemic experiences as a key determinant when forecasting the economic outlook and making policy-related decisions. Moreover, practitioners and advisory firms can improve the earning prediction models by placing more weight on pandemic-adjusted forecasts made by analysts with past epidemic experience.

The uncertainty induced by the COVID-19 pandemic increases uncertainty in global financial markets. Under such circumstances, the importance of analysts’ role as information intermediaries gains even more importance. This raises the question of what determines analysts’ forecast accuracy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Building upon prior literature on the role of analyst experience in shaping analysts’ forecasts, the authors examine whether experience in tracking firms exposed to prior epidemics allows analysts to forecast more accurately during COVID-19. The authors find that analysts who have experience in forecasting for firms with high exposure to epidemics (H1N1, Zika, Ebola, and SARS) exhibit higher accuracy than analysts who lack such experience. Further, this effect of experience on forecast accuracy is more pronounced while forecasting for firms with higher exposure to the risk of COVID-19 and for firms with a poor ex-ante informational environment.

To elaborate the picture of credibility assessment by examining how participants of online discussion evaluate the informational credibility of conspiracy theories.

Descriptive quantitative analysis and qualitative content analysis of 2,663 posts submitted to seven Reddit threads discussing a conspiracy operation, that is, the damage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September 2022. It was examined how the participants of online discussion assess the credibility of information constitutive of conspiracy theories speculating about (1) suspected actors responsible for the damage, (2) their motives and (3) the ways in which the damage was made. The credibility assessments focussed on diverse sources offering information about the above three factors.

The participants assessed the credibility of information by drawing on four main criteria: plausibility of arguments, honesty in argumentation, similarity to one's beliefs and provision of evidence. Most assessments were negative and indicated doubt about the informational believability of conspiracy theories about the damage. Of the information sources referred to in the discussion, the posts submitted by fellow participants, television programmes and statements provided by governmental organizations were judged most critically, due to implausible argumentation and advocacy of biased views.

As the study focuses on a sample of posts dealing with conspiracy theories about a particular event, the findings cannot be generalized to concern the informational credibility conspiracy narratives.

The study pioneers by providing an in-depth analysis of the nature of credibility assessments by focussing on information constitutive of conspiracy theories.

Drawing insights from the ecological theory, the purpose of this paper is to explore social determinants related to pathways to high-risk sexual behaviors of international travelers across their life span.

Data were collected from 45 international travelers in Houston, a critical transit point frequented by international visitors.

Overall, several ecological settings (individuals, interpersonal, institutional and contextual) related to two typologies of international travelers (risk takers vs non-risk takers) and their inclination to engage in high-risk sexual practices in an international or/and local context were identified.

This research calls for the need to assess high-risk sexual behaviors from the ecological perspective to better understand the dynamics of disease transmission among frequent international travelers from diverse backgrounds/life styles and age cohorts.

Prevention and treatment programs developed for at-risk international travelers should target both distal and proximal social factors that predispose travelers to vulnerable situations. To build a reliable health surveillance network, policy makers, health practitioners and educators must focus not only on individual-level determinants but also on other ecological determinants that branch out beyond the personal level (e.g. interpersonal, institutional and contextual levels). Multi-level formal and informal social networks can be developed to promote a global social climate and environment that encourage safe sex and safety precautions.

To raise awareness, the public must be constantly reminded that outbreaks of potentially health hazards can lead to unpredictable morbidity/mortality and security risks that place a burden on our nation’s economic growth, emergency responsiveness and homeland security infrastructure.

The study is one of very few to address international travelers’ health risk, while abroad, from an ecological lens across the life course.

Early evidence suggests that coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused a sharp deterioration in fiscal accounts worldwide. This paper empirically assesses the fiscal impact of previous pandemics and epidemics.

Using a large sample of 170 countries from 2000 to 2018, this study relies on Jordà's (2005) local projection method to trace pandemics' short- to medium-term dynamic impact on several fiscal aggregates.

This paper shows that (qualitatively) similar responses to those observed more recently with COVID-19 have characterized the effects of previous pandemics. While the fiscal effect has been economically and statistically significant and persistent, it varies; pandemics affect government expenditures more strongly than revenues in advanced economies, while the converse applies to developing countries. The author also finds that asymmetric responses depend on whether a country is characterized as a chronic fiscal surplus or deficit type. Another factor that generates an asymmetric fiscal response is the prevailing phase of the business cycle the economy was in when the pandemic shock hits.

This paper's findings provide a lower bound to what the current COVID-19 pandemic will inflict on countries’ fiscal situation. That said, the set of pandemics and epidemics used in this paper are geographically more concentrated and did not affect all countries in such a systemic and synchronized manner as did COVID-19 more recently.

This is the first paper to explore the fiscal side of this type of health-related shocks, as most of the literature has focused on the more traditional macroeconomic effects.