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Motivated by the 150-year anniversary of the Naunyn–Schmiedeberg's Archives of Pharmacology in 2023, we studied the bibliometric development of the journal. We evaluated data from Editorial Reports, Clarivate, and Springer Nature databases. Several parameters representing the journal's performance, such as the impact factor and social impact, were analyzed over the years. We analyzed the journal's meta-data and wrote an algorithm to retrieve cities and countries of origin. We could see a decrease in publications from Germany and an increase in papers from Brazil, China, Egypt, and Iran during the last years. The decrease in publications from Germany is probably a zeitgeist effect because this country places a strong emphasis on high-impact factor papers for academic promotion and winning grants. Germany was the country with the most publications throughout the 100 most-cited articles. Most of these articles were published between 1970 and 1990, when neurotransmitters were the most published topic. Klaus Starke (Freiburg) and Manfred Göthert (Bonn) were prominent drivers of this field. The most common topics nowadays are "Drugs for the Treatment of Malignant Tumor Diseases" and "Immunopharmacology." The internationality of the journal substantially increased after introduction of English as mandatory language in the 1970s. The journal also experienced substantial COVID-19 pandemic-related effects. This paper is not only of relevance for the field of pharmacology but for science in general in the sense that Naunyn–Schmiedeberg's Archives of Pharmacology is a case study for profound changes in a traditional scientific journal, requiring permanent adjustment by editors, referees, publisher, authors, and readers alike. The development of the journal has been strongly influenced by historic and political developments, cultural attitudes (zeitgeist), language changes, global changes in research topics, and eminent individuals who published many papers in Naunyn–Schmiedeberg's Archives of Pharmacology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Contactless shopping concepts meet the needs of those consumers who want to minimise social interactions, especially due to COVID-19; they also offer added value by combining the advantages of traditional shopping with digital features that stem from online shopping. The development of digitalised retail concepts has been made possible through digitisation and the use of new technologies. To date, the concepts have been created with various formats through the application of the most advanced Industry 4.0 technologies. This paper aims to provide a deepened understanding of the latest trends and draws attention to the various classes, including shopping functionalities and features. Design/methodology/approach: This paper performs a review of current disruptive and new business retail concepts within the grocery retail industry in Germany. Therefore, a secondary research methodology and observations were performed to create an overview and a categorization. This categorization has been used to identify the related cases. Findings: The results add to the literature as follows. First, a matching of contactless shopping to innovative business models is made. Second, a status-quo analysis of contactless shopping solutions in Germany is carried out with defined set of criteria. This study created a list of all major available contactless shopping solutions. Third, this study examines two new business models, namely, automated vending machines and walk-in stores, which meet the changes in consumer behaviour and needs in times of the COVID-19 pandemic. Originality/value: This paper provides a deeper understanding of the latest trends within the retail industry and draws attention to disruptive business models as well as the functionalities and features of shopping solutions. New store concepts launched during the COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in unique selling propositions of 24-h everyday shopping and contactless shopping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses how Cyprus' economy coped with the Covid-19 pandemic by generating two series of forecasts with wavelet analysis: forecasts using data including the pandemic (from Q4 1997 to Q2 2022) and not including the pandemic (from Q4 1997 to Q3 2019). The difference of their averages is an indicator of the resilience of the economy during the pandemic, the greater the difference, the more resilient the economy. Eurozone and Germany are used as benchmarks: subtracting the Q3 2022 to Q4 2050 GDP growth rate (quarterly and annualized) average forecast of Cyprus obtained with the Q4 1997-Q2 2022 data, +1.62%, by the one obtained with the Q4 1997-Q3 2019 data, +1.47%, the difference is +0.15% whereas with Eurozone the difference is +0.11%, [+0.68% - (+0.57%)] and with Germany the difference is -0.12% [+0.89% - (+1.01%)]. Thus, Cyprus' economy shows a slightly higher resilience (+0.15%) than the Eurozone's (+0.11%) based on Q3 2022-Q4 2050 forecasts and a stronger resilience than Germany's (-0.12%). Moreover, the average of the Q3 2022-Q4 2050 quarterly (annualized) growth rate forecasts of Cyprus is expected to be +1.62% with the Q4 1997-Q2 2022 data whereas it is expected to be only +0.68% for the Eurozone and +0.89% for Germany. Cyprus' economy shows better prospects than the Eurozone's and Germany's economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The German payments market is sizeable, handling almost one-quarter of the non-cash transactions conducted in the euro area, and benefiting from structurally lower cost levels. At the same time, it is characterised by a highly complex and intense competitive set. These two factors seem to result in low fee levels. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated structural change (and digital payments adoption) in a market with distinctive institutions and consumer preferences. This paper reviews both the key players shaping the overall payments market, as well as the characteristics of key payment solutions and situations. In doing so, the paper identifies and explains the idiosyncrasies of the German market, linking back to the aforementioned factors shaping the German payments market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2020, anti-Asian racism re-emerged during the coronavirus pandemic in Germany and elsewhere, manifesting in media narratives, and evoking different forms of violence and exclusion, especially in public space. Racialisation as an everyday process creates "counter-frames" by racialised groups. They are constructed in relation to institutionalised interpellation as "the other." Building on Feagin's concept of "white framing" and "counter-framing" and Löw's concept of space, this paper discusses the effects of racialisation, coping and anti-racist resistance strategies as developed by the Asian diaspora. Social change regarding racism will be analysed through Foroutan's concept of "postmigrant society." We based this study on a convenience sample of people with Asian heritage which we conducted in 2020 in Germany. In addition, we included a diary study for which a subset has been sampled. We argue that the pandemic influenced the formation of counter-frames against anti-Asian racism in the specific context of Berlin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: To investigate factors that influence the willingness of inactive nurses to return to nursing in a crisis situation and to identify aspects that need to be considered with regard to a possible deployment. Design: A deductive and inductive qualitative content analysis of semi-structured focus group interviews. Methods: Semi-structured focus group interviews with inactive or marginally employed nurses, nurses who have been inactive for some time and nursing home managers in October and November 2021. The participating inactive nurses had declared their willingness for a deployment during the COVID-19 pandemic or not. Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis. Results: Communication was seen as essential by the participants for an informed decision for or against a temporary return to nursing and to potential or actual deployments. To make them feel safe, inactive nurses need to know what to expect and what is expected of them, for example, regarding required training and responsibilities. Considering their current employment status, some flexibility in terms of deployment conditions is needed. A remaining attachment to care can trigger a sense of duty. Knowledge of (regular) working conditions in nursing can lead to both a desire to support former colleagues and a refusal to be exposed to these conditions again. Conclusion: Past working experiences and the current employment situation play a major role in the willingness of inactive nurses to return to nursing in a crisis situation. Unbureaucratic arrangements must be provided for those who are willing to return. Summary Statement: • What already is known - In crisis situations, not every inactive nurse is willing or able to return to nursing and therefore, the 'silent reserve' may not be as large as suspected. • What this paper adds - Inactive nurses need to know what to expect and what is expected of them for their decision regarding a return to active patient care during a crisis situation. • Implications for practice/policy -- Inactive nurses need to be informed and should be offered free training and refresher courses to ensure patient safety. Impact: This research shows that the group of inactive nurses are not a silent workforce which can be activated anytime. Those who are able and willing to return to direct patient care in crisis situations need the best possible support -- during and between crises. Reporting Method: This study adhered to COREQ guidelines. No Patient or Public Contribution: The involvement of patients or members of the public did not apply for the study, as the aim was to gain insight into the motivations and attitudes of the group of inactive nurses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The recent COVID-19 pandemic uncovered some already existing but somewhat hidden inequalities in different countries. Many features of inequalities that pre-existed the COVID-19 pandemic for a long time were uncovered due to this radical shift in living arrangements globally. This paper focuses on one particular feature of these inequalities: housing situation of one Iranian asylum seeker in a heim (refugee accommodation) in Germany. Contributing to an understanding of how political resistance can be exercised through personal biographies, the paper differentiates between the notion of 'unhome' from home by discussing three factors: choice, anchor and the significant of others. The paper contributes to the growing scholarships around home in migration and its intersection with personal narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Real-time surveillance is a crucial element in the response to infectious disease outbreaks. However, the interpretation of incidence data is often hampered by delays occurring at various stages of data gathering and reporting. As a result, recent values are biased downward, which obscures current trends. Statistical nowcasting techniques can be employed to correct these biases, allowing for accurate characterization of recent developments and thus enhancing situational awareness. In this paper, we present a preregistered real-time assessment of eight nowcasting approaches, applied by independent research teams to German 7-day hospitalization incidences during the COVID-19 pandemic. This indicator played an important role in the management of the outbreak in Germany and was linked to levels of non-pharmaceutical interventions via certain thresholds. Due to its definition, in which hospitalization counts are aggregated by the date of case report rather than admission, German hospitalization incidences are particularly affected by delays and can take several weeks or months to fully stabilize. For this study, all methods were applied from 22 November 2021 to 29 April 2022, with probabilistic nowcasts produced each day for the current and 28 preceding days. Nowcasts at the national, state, and age-group levels were collected in the form of quantiles in a public repository and displayed in a dashboard. Moreover, a mean and a median ensemble nowcast were generated. We find that overall, the compared methods were able to remove a large part of the biases introduced by delays. Most participating teams underestimated the importance of very long delays, though, resulting in nowcasts with a slight downward bias. The accompanying prediction intervals were also too narrow for almost all methods. Averaged over all nowcast horizons, the best performance was achieved by a model using case incidences as a covariate and taking into account longer delays than the other approaches. For the most recent days, which are often considered the most relevant in practice, a mean ensemble of the submitted nowcasts performed best. We conclude by providing some lessons learned on the definition of nowcasting targets and practical challenges. Author summary: Current trends in epidemiological indicators are often obscured by the fact that recent values are still incomplete. This is due to reporting delays and other types of delays. Statistical nowcasting methods can be used to account for these biases and reveal yet unobserved trends, thereby improving situational awareness and supporting public health decision-making. While numerous methods exist for this purpose, little is known about their behavior in real-time settings and their relative performance. In this paper, we compared eight different nowcasting methods in an application to COVID-19 hospitalization incidences in Germany from November 2021 to April 2022. Additionally, we combined the predictions of these methods to create so-called ensemble nowcasts. Our findings indicate that while all methods yielded practically useful results, some systematic biases in nowcasts occurred and the remaining uncertainty was generally underestimated. Combined ensemble nowcasts showed promising performance relative to individual models and thus represent a promising avenue for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trust in journalism is highly relevant for society. Within the past years, especially during the COVID19-pandemic, trust in journalism became a recurring subject of public debate in Germany: Journalism is often vilified as 'lying press' and the legitimacy of traditional media is increasingly questioned. While in Germany, unlike other countries, we do not see a crisis in media trust, there nonetheless is a certain share of the population being skeptical towards traditional journalism. News outlets therefore need to ask themselves how to win back these sections of their audience and strengthen trust in their work. So far, research on media trust has largely focused on the audience – the journalistic perspective has hardly been examined. By conducting 29 interviews with German journalists, this paper aims to analyze which strategies news outlets pursue to cultivate trust in their work. Three main approaches to trust-building can be identified: The quality oriented, the audience engagers and the transparent. The results enable us to get a clearer overview on how news outlets try to regain and build their audience's trust – which presents starting points for both journalism practice and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic revealed a need for better collaboration among research, care, and management in Germany as well as globally. Initially, there was a high demand for broad data collection across Germany, but as the pandemic evolved, localized data became increasingly necessary. Customized dashboards and tools were rapidly developed to provide timely and accurate information. In Saxony, the DISPENSE project was created to predict short-term hospital bed capacity demands, and while it was successful, continuous adjustments and the initial monolithic system architecture of the application made it difficult to customize and scale. Methods: To analyze the current state of the DISPENSE tool, we conducted an in-depth analysis of the data processing steps and identified data flows underlying users' metrics and dashboards. We also conducted a workshop to understand the different views and constraints of specific user groups, and brought together and clustered the information according to content-related service areas to determine functionality-related service groups. Based on this analysis, we developed a concept for the system architecture, modularized the main services by assigning specialized applications and integrated them into the existing system, allowing for self-service reporting and evaluation of the expert groups' needs. Results: We analyzed the applications' dataflow and identified specific user groups. The functionalities of the monolithic application were divided into specific service groups for data processing, data storage, predictions, content visualization, and user management. After composition and implementation, we evaluated the new system architecture against the initial requirements by enabling self-service reporting to the users. Discussion: By modularizing the monolithic application and creating a more flexible system, the challenges of rapidly changing requirements, growing need for information, and high administrative efforts were addressed. Conclusion: We demonstrated an improved adaptation towards the needs of various user groups, increased efficiency, and reduced burden on administrators, while also enabling self-service functionalities and specialization of single applications on individual service groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries used short-time work schemes, i.e., subsidies for temporary working hours reductions due to production drops. In Germany, regulations on entitlements and benefits have been much more generous during the pandemic than they were in noncrisis times. This paper conducts a factorial survey experiment among the workforce to investigate which amounts of short-time benefits and which associated replacement rates were perceived as appropriate during the pandemic. We interpret our findings in the context of the deservingness theory. Our results show that the assessments are partly consistent with the legal design features in Germany. One of our key findings is that, according to respondents, the short-time allowance should decrease slightly with an increasing duration of short-time work. In Germany, however, with the onset of the pandemic, a rule was temporarily implemented that step-wise increased short-time work benefits with the duration of short-time work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected how people go about their daily lives, often in various and substantial ways. This study aims to prospectively evaluate the changes in social participation during the COVID-19 pandemic in persons with a high risk for a severe COVID-19 course in Germany. A paper-pencil-based survey was conducted starting at March 2021. Participants filled out questionnaires at four time points based on their COVID-19 vaccination status: before COVID-19 vaccination, one month, six months and twelve months after COVID-19 vaccination. Social participation measures included the Pandemic Social Participation Questionnaire (PSP-Q) and the Index for measuring participation restrictions (IMET). Repeated measures ANOVA and paired t-test were used to test for changes between time-points. Repeated measures correlation was used to assess the relationship between social participation and local COVID-19 incidences. Data from 245 participants was analyzed before and one month after COVID-19 vaccination. In addition, data from 156 participants was analyzed at time points one, six and twelve months after COVID-19. PSP-Q and IMET scores changed significantly after participants received a COVID-19 vaccination. Between one month and twelve months after vaccination, social participation improved significantly measured by PSP-Q. Social participation was negatively correlated with regional COVID-19 incidences before and after COVID-19 vaccination. Social participation was positively correlated with COVID-19 incidences between one month and twelve months after COVID-19 vaccination. Social participation improved in persons with a high risk for a severe COVID-19 course during the pandemic. The local COVID-19 incidence showed a negative association with social participation only until the fall of 2021 when it was used as the sole metric to regulate COVID-19 protective measures. Although our data describes the trends in social participation, further studies are needed to identify the influencing factors for the observed increase in social participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social network theories are used extensively to analyze the international migration of Chinese to overseas regions in the era of Market Economy Reform since 1978. Attention is paid especially on the role of social networks among overseas Chinese on disaster relief in China. Focusing on the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, this paper investigates how social networks work as a crucial mechanism through which Chinese immigrants in Germany initiated and delivered monetary and material donations to China in early 2020 and then organized self-help in their everyday lives in Germany in late 2020. Different from previous studies, this paper scrutinizes social networks for disaster relief on the macro, meso, and micro levels. Multi-site ethnographic fieldwork in China and Germany combined with online and offline data collected from focus group sessions, interviews with individuals, participant observations, surveys, analysis of news reports on the pandemic, and analysis on relevant policies are utilized comprehensively to collect data on the three levels. This research discovers that internet tools – represented by WeChat – have integrated tightly into the traditional social networks of Chinese immigrants and consolidated the cultural cohesion from overseas Chinese to their connections in China. This paper aims at contributing to present studies on Chinese new immigrants, social network, and disaster management theories with an updated ethnographic case on the COVID-19 pandemic from Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entrepreneurship has been claimed to matter and deserve priority because it has been linked to some of the most compelling economic and social issues of our time. This paper suggests that entrepreneurship is also inextricably linked to a fundamental value common among the western developed economies, democracy. Three distinct contexts are examined to link democracy to entrepreneurship, two historical and one contemporary. The first is National Socialism in Germany, which emerged by suppressing both entrepreneurship and democracy. The second is the rise of the Trusts, or dominant large corporations and concomitant decline of small business in the United States at the end of the nineteenth century. Finally, both measurement and perception suggest a decline in democracy as well as entrepreneurship in the contemporary era. These concerns are only exacerbated in the current Covid-19 crisis. The paper concludes that an important policy mandate for entrepreneurship may be to ensure the independent, decentralized and autonomous decision-making serving as a cornerstone of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SEIR (Susceptible–Exposed–Infected–Recovered) approach is a classic modeling method that is frequently used to study infectious diseases. However, in the vast majority of such models transitions from one population group to another are described using the mass-action law. That causes inability to reproduce observable dynamics of an infection such as the incubation period or progression of the disease's symptoms. In this paper, we propose a new approach to simulate the epidemic dynamics based on a system of differential equations with time delays and instant transitions to approximate durations of transition processes more correctly and make model parameters more clear. The suggested approach can be applied not only to Covid-19 but also to the study of other infectious diseases. We utilized it in the development of the delay-based model of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany and France. The model takes into account testing of different population groups, symptoms progression from mild to critical, vaccination, duration of protective immunity and new virus strains. The stringency index was used as a generalized characteristic of the non-pharmaceutical government interventions in corresponding countries to contain the virus spread. The parameter identifiability analysis demonstrated that the presented modeling approach enables to significantly reduce the number of parameters and make them more identifiable. Both models are publicly available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The international study PRICOV-19 aims to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the organisation of primary health care. The German part focuses on German general practitioners during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper addresses the following research questions: (1) How were changes in tasks on primary care and patient treatment perceived by GPs?, (2) What was the role of GPs during the pandemic, and how was their wellbeing?, (3) How did GPs perceive health policy measures?, and, (4) What influenced the attitudes of GPs on health policy measures? Methods: This study pursues a multi-country cross-sectional design. Data collection took place throughout Germany from 01.02. to 28.02.2021 with a quantitative online questionnaire consisting of 53 items. The questionnaire was analysed through descriptive and inferential analyses using correlation and multiple regression models. Results: The response rate was 20.4% (n = 349). The respondents were mainly GPs (59.6%) in single practices (62.5%) with a mean work experience of 15 to 20 years. GPs experienced a change in their work and practice organisation (80.3%). They felt a high responsibility (70.6%) and found their work has become more meaningful to them (76%). They also saw a lack of political support (75.2%) and that the measures taken by the government overburdened the daily practice (66.4%). Not many GPs were at risk of being distressed (53.4%) but rated the health policies rather negatively (60%). The multiple regression showed, the more GPs were exposed to risk of distress, the worse they assessed the government's measures. Conclusion: GPs perceived their work as relevant and felt confident they could fulfil their tasks, but noticed that health policy initially hardly supported the outpatient sector. Health policies should increase their competence in relation to primary care, ensure its needs and consider an active inclusion of GPs in preparedness plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains the extent to which the export-led growth strategies deployed in Germany and Italy turn out to be self-defeating. The problem lies in the impact of those strategies on the banking systems of the two countries. The German banks become more international; the Italian banks become more locally oriented. In turn, these changes create tensions that cannot be reconciled easily within the institutional framework that made the export-led growth model successful in the first place. The paper also seeks to explain why tensions in export-led growth models today do not always resemble those it experienced in the past – and it examines what are the implications both for how the two countries responded to the economic and financial crisis and how they are responding to the economic consequences of the novel coronavirus pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the first half of 2020, the coronavirus pandemic led to a drastic slump in the automotive industry, which was replaced by a surprisingly rapid growth in demand in the fall of 2020, and consequently led to the current shortages in microelectronic products. The prospect of an equally rapid economic recovery in the automotive industry is still threatened by supply bottlenecks for raw materials and key components, foremost for semiconductors. The so-called 'semiconductor crises' show exemplarily the overlapping of short-term supply chain disruptions with long-term structural features of the semiconductor industry. The combination of both is preventing that the supply situation in the automotive industry will improve quickly. First in this paper, the reasons for and respective effects of the crisis on the automotive industry are investigated by a quantitative market analysis. Second, specific strategic measures and options of automotive Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) and suppliers in Germany to cope with the situation and increase resilience in future supply chains are described by the means of qualitative expert interviews. By that, the paper helps in understanding the actual situation in the automotive industry, on the one hand, and contributes to the field of strategic supply chain and risk management with a focus on practical implications on the other hand. The results aim to support political stakeholders as well as small and medium sized enterprises to prepare themselves for future developments in the automotive market and changes in manufacturer–supplier relationships due to the transformation to new powertrain technologies and digitization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to analyze the convergence of the testing and positivity rates for the COVID-19 pandemic focusing on Germany and Italy. Design/methodology/approach: The authors employ the two-regime threshold autoregressive (TAR) panel unit root test by using the weekly data in the period of 2020:03-2021:04. Findings: Following finding out that the testing and positivity rates are nonlinear, the authors determine that the transition country between the two regimes is Italy for the testing rates and Germany for the positivity rates. Their findings support the partial convergence for the testing rates for Germany and Italy. On the other hand, the authors could not find any convergence for the positivity rates of these two countries. Originality/value: This paper contributes to academic literature in several ways. Firstly, to the best of their knowledge, this paper is the first study that analyzes the convergence of testing and positivity data. This paper further focuses on two Euro-Area countries which have suffered significantly from the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, the authors employ the two-regime threshold autoregressive (TAR) panel unit root proposed by Beyaert and Camacho (2008) in their empirical analysis. This recent panel data methodology aims to test real convergence in a nonlinear framework by incorporating the threshold model, panel data unit root test and the calculation of critical values by bootstrap simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper develops an individual‐based stochastic network SIR model for the empirical analysis of the Covid‐19 pandemic. It derives moment conditions for the number of infected and active cases for single as well as multigroup epidemic models. These moment conditions are used to investigate the identification and estimation of the transmission rates. The paper then proposes a method that jointly estimates the transmission rate and the magnitude of under‐reporting of infected cases. Empirical evidence on six European countries matches the simulated outcomes once the under‐reporting of infected cases is addressed. It is estimated that the number of actual cases could be between 4 to 10 times higher than the reported numbers in October 2020 and declined to 2 to 3 times in April 2021. The calibrated models are used in the counterfactual analyses of the impact of social distancing and vaccination on the epidemic evolution and the timing of early interventions in the United Kingdom and Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a study on remote learning of primary school children during the first school closures that were imposed in Germany in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020. Data were collected at a primary school covering learners from age 6-12 and include a comprehensive survey amongst parents (n=69) as well as interviews with learners (n=17). Employing a mixed-methods approach, we first analyse the parent-survey's quantitative dataset. The analyses demonstrate that using modern technology for teaching and for communication between teachers and learners positively impact learners' motivation and well-being. Multivariate statistics show that teacher-learner contact frequency as well as teaching-learning transparency are predictive towards learner well-being. The subsequent analysis of interview data helps to gain a more nuanced picture on learners' experiences and well-being. Analyses show that learners experience multifaceted worries and concerns, and that one of the most substantial challenges of remote learning lies in a perceived change of teacher expectations. Based on the analyses of both datasets, it is argued that the contact frequency and quality, the proficient use of up-to-date technology, as well as transparency of teachers' expectations positively influence learners' well-being, and that thus, contact quality and transparency can counteract children's worries and concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on German household income in 2020 using a micro-level approach. We combine a microsimulation model with novel labour market transition techniques to simulate the COVID-19 shock on the German labour market. We find the consequences of the labour market shock to be highly regressive with a strong impact on the poorest households. However, this effect is nearly entirely offset by automatic stabilisers and discretionary policy measures. We explore the cushioning effect of these policies in detail, showing that short-time working schemes and especially the one-off payments for children are effective in cushioning the income loss of the poor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the wellbeing of children and families globally. With extended lockdown periods, early childhood education and school closures, and remote learning, families experienced increased stress and anxiety, financial hardship, and disrupted routines. This paper aims to explore associations between children's social-emotional wellbeing and environmental factors (including the burden of COVID-19 on the family, early learning experiences in the home and early childhood education, and parent wellbeing and mental health) during COVID-19 in Australia and Germany, two countries that experienced significant lockdown periods. Using a longitudinal online survey design, parents of young children (aged 1–6 years) in Australia (N = 66) and Germany (N = 53) completed surveys on their own wellbeing; their child's wellbeing; the home learning environment, and their satisfaction with early childhood education and care at two time points in 2020 and 2021. The burden of COVID-19 mitigation measures on families' everyday lives correlated with child wellbeing outcomes in both the Australian and German cohorts. Findings also provide evidence of potential protective factors of children's social-emotional wellbeing during stressful events, such as the lockdowns experienced by families in Germany and Australia during the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A sudden change in the external environment, such as the COVID-19 pandemic meant for senior customers in CEE, required coping mechanisms to adapt and a significant change in behavioural patterns. The paper presents the social and customer behaviour changes among elderly citizens caused by the pandemic and aims to identify regional differences in adapting to these changes. Results from CATI interviews of 5875 participants from Germany, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which were conducted as a part of the international SHARE project, bring a deeper understanding of regional differences. Behavioural segmentation made in each of the studied countries shows that the clusters created in each country are different and yet similar in certain aspects. Clusters of "adapters" - seniors with partial behavioural change - are found in all three countries, and even though they vary in some aspects of behaviour, they have significant commonalities as well. Clusters of the "vulnerable" - seniors who had undergone a complete change of behavioural patterns to protect themselves - and clusters of the "resistant" - seniors resisting the change - are found only in two of the studied countries. Differences in understanding the threat and feeling the need to react in certain ways are found not only between countries but also within cultures. By employing Hofstede's cultural dimensions score to explain detected differences, the article brings more understanding of how power distance, indulgence and individualism could form differences in the usage of coping mechanisms among the elderly. The results bring insight into important aspects of changes in behaviour, which should be understood and mirrored in the business strategies of companies whose actual or potential customers are represented by this population. Implications for Central European audience: The research into behavioural changes among senior consumers due to the COVID-19 pandemic was done in three CEE countries: Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Germany and the implications are therefore well suitable for the CEE region, yet generalizations for other countries must be made carefully as the results show that behavioural segments identified in the studied countries indicate cultural differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In times of crisis, governments have strong incentives to influence banks' credit allocation because the survival of the economy depends on it. How do governments make banks 'play along'? This paper focuses on the state-guaranteed credit programs (SGCPs) that have been implemented to help firms survive the COVID-19 crisis. Governments' capacity to save the economy depends on banks' capacity to grant credit to struggling firms (which they would not be naturally inclined to do in the context of a global pandemic). All governments thus face the same challenge: How do they make sure that state-guaranteed loans reach their desired target and on what terms? Based on a comparative analysis of the elaboration and implementation of SGCPs in France and Germany, this paper shows that historically-rooted institutionalized modes of coordination between state and bank actors have largely shaped the terms of the SGCPs in these two countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After an economically tough start to the new millennium, Germany experienced an unprecedented employment boom after 2005, only stopped by the COVID‐19 pandemic. Persistently high levels of inequality despite a booming labour market and drastically falling unemployment rates constituted a puzzle, suggesting either that the German job miracle mainly benefitted individuals in the mid‐ or high‐income range or that other developments offset the effects of the drastically improved labour market conditions. The present paper solves this puzzle by breaking down the observed changes in the distribution of disposable incomes between 2005–06 and 2015–16 into the contributions of eight different factors, one of them being the employment boom. Our results suggest that, while the latter did have an equalising impact, it was partially offset by the disequalising impact of other factors, and substantially dampened by the transfer system. Our results point to a strong role of the German transfer system as a distributional stabiliser implying that, if the COVID‐19 shock were to persistently reverse all the employment gains that occurred during the boom, this would only have a moderately disequalising effect on the distribution of net incomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In medical studies, pharmacology is a subject with a high teaching and study load. The COVID-19 pandemic–related switch to distance learning implies challenges for students and teachers. To identify changes of behavior, attitudes, and needs among students and teachers in clinical pharmacology during the pandemic, regular surveys were conducted at Ulm University, Germany. Overall, 884 students and 5 teachers answered the survey. Over time, students' usage of learning materials in print form and further literature (textbooks, guidelines) constantly decreased. In turn, most students used digital materials provided via a learning management system. Attitudes and opinions of students and teachers significantly differed regarding (i) the benefit of certain teaching formats and learning materials, (ii) open-mindedness towards e-learning, and (iii) future visions. Most students and lecturers stated that they spent more time on study or teaching-related activities, respectively, and had less contact with fellow students or colleagues in comparison to pre-pandemic times. Furthermore, the subjective teaching load for most lecturers (80%) increased during the pandemic. To identify determinants of learning success, the survey data were correlated with students' gradings in the written exams of clinical pharmacology. In the first online semester (summer term 2020), the use of paper-based learning scripts was correlated with better exam grades. No correlation with grade was found for any other learning materials. Age was inversely correlated with exam grading. Striking a balance between the future visions and needs of students and teachers implies a particular challenge for the educational system of the next years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of the use of ICTs in the university context has been investigated for decades, as they are not only tools in themselves, but also generate a new social space and, therefore, a new educational space known among others as virtual education or online learning (OL). Precisely, OL has been presented as an alternative in the historical context originated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has created an unexpected situation for social structures and their educational institutions. The main goals of the study was to know about the students' perceptions of the educational use of ICTs and educational technologies in times of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some specific objectives of the research were (i) to identify the disposition of the students towards the use of ICTs, (ii) to characterize the Interaction with others through the use of ICTs, and to (iii) identify the interaction of the students with LMS and ICTs. An in-depth theoretical review allowed the authors of this paper to construct an instrument to measure students' perceptions about the use of ICTs and educational technologies in times of the COVID-19 pandemic. This research was financially supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) as part of the project “Praxispartnerschaften zwischen Hochschulen und Unternehmen in Deutschland und in Entwicklungsländern ab 2017” (Project Nr. 57334905). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate determinants of willingness to adopt telerehabilitation, willingness of technology use, core affect regarding using telerehabilitation, and digital competencies in rehabilitation professionals in Austria and Germany before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. A cross-sectional paper-based and online survey was conducted before and during COVID-19, respectively, with three cohorts of rehabilitation professionals. Outcomes were the willingness to adopt telerehabilitation evaluated using the extended Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology; willingness of technology use using the short scale for assessing the willingness of technology use; digital competencies and core affect using the Digital Competence Framework and semantic differential, respectively. Multivariate ordinal regression analysis was performed to determine predictors. Included were 603 rehabilitation professionals. Analysis revealed differences between Austria and Germany and before and during the pandemic for most outcomes. German residency, the pandemic, and a higher educational level were most important predictors of higher willingness to adopt telerehabilitation, willingness of technology use, digital competencies, and positive core affect. The pandemic increased most aspects of willingness to adopt telerehabilitation, willingness of technology use, digital competencies, and positive core affect. Results confirm that rehabilitation professionals with higher degrees are more prone to adopt innovations in healthcare.Registration: German Clinical Trials Register (DRKS00021464) The willingness to adopt telerehabilitation is associated with external factors increasing the need for alternative rehabilitation delivery, such as COVID-19, and with financial facilitators, such as reimbursement. As the willingness to adopt telerehabilitation is higher among speech and language therapists and dietitians, efforts are necessary to enhance its use in physiotherapists and occupational therapists. As a higher willingness to adopt telerehabilitation was observed in younger rehabilitation professionals and those with higher education, increasing the importance of telerehabilitation in education curricula and further knowledge transfer into practice for those already working in the field seems necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the COVID‐19 pandemic, national triage guidelines were developed to address the anticipated shortage of life‐saving resources, should ICU capacities be overloaded. Rationing and triage imply that in addition to individual patient interests, interests of population health have to be integrated. The transfer of theoretical and empirical knowledge into feasible and useful practice models and their implementation in clinical settings need to be improved. This paper analyzes how triage protocols could translate abstract theories of distributive justice into concrete material and procedural criteria for rationing intensive care resources during a pandemic. We reconstruct the development and implementation of a rationing protocol at a German university hospital: describing the ethical challenge of triage, clarifying the aspirational norms, and summarizing specific norms of fair triage and allocation for developing an institutional policy and practice model and implementing it. We reflect on how critical topics are seen by clinicians and what helped manage the perceived burdens of the triage dilemma. We analyze what can be learned from this debate regarding the difficult issues around triage protocols and their potential implementation into clinical settings. Analyzing the ought‐to‐is gap of triage, integrating abstract ethical principles into practical concepts, and evaluating those should clarify the benefits and risks of different allocation options. We seek to inform debates on triage concepts and policies to ensure the best possible treatment and fair allocation of resources as well as to help protect patients and professionals in worst‐case scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In times of crises, such as the refugee crisis or the corona pandemic, the workload in public administrations increases because of the demands of citizens or short-term legal changes. In addition, there is an increasing need for digitalization or to be able to react flexibly to changes. Agile process models and agile practices are appropriate to overcome these challenges. The objective of this paper is to investigate how public administrations can measure their degree of agility to identify potential for improving it. The authors conducted a descriptive single-case study which included multiple units of analysis in a public administration in Germany. The case study was supported by their questionnaire for measuring the degree of agility. One outcome of this study is a conceptual framework that can be used to drive agile transformation in public administrations by continuously measuring agility. Therefore, a questionnaire for measuring agility at team level in public administrations has been developed. The application of the questionnaire in three teams provide insights into dysfunctionality in the interdisciplinary teams as well as optimization potential in terms of affinity to change. The adoption of agility in public administration is a challenge, given that resistance to change is still prevalent. A transformational change is a constant journey, and therefore, the measurement of progress plays an important role in the continuous improvement of an organization. The applied approach delivers high potential for improvement in terms of agility and provides interesting insights for both practitioners and academics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Publications in peer-reviewed journals are the most important currency in science. But what about publications in non-peer-reviewed magazines? The objective of this study was to analyze the publications of scientists, with a focus on pharmacologists, in the non-peer-reviewed German science magazine Biospektrum from 1999 to 2021. Biospektrum is edited by five scientific societies in Germany including the Society for Experimental and Clinical Society Pharmacology and Toxicology (DGPT) and provides opportunities to researchers to showcase their research to a broad audience. We analyzed 3197 authors of 1326 articles. Compared to the fields of biochemistry, microbiology, and genetics, pharmacology was largely underrepresented. Just three institutions in Germany contributed most papers to Biospektrum. Researchers with a doctoral degree were the largest author group, followed by researchers with a habilitation degree. Among all major fields, women were underrepresented as authors, particularly as senior authors. The Covid pandemic leads to a drop of publications of female first authors but not last authors. Compared to publications in the peer-reviewed journal Naunyn–Schmiedeberg's Archives of Pharmacology (Zehetbauer et al., Naunyn-Schmiedebergs Arch Pharmacol 395:39–50 (2022)), female pharmacologists were underrepresented in the Biospektrum. Thus, German pharmacologists as a group do not value investing in "social impact" gained by publications in Biospektrum, and this attitude is even more prominent among female pharmacologists. Investing less in "social impact" by female pharmacologists may result in reduced visibility on the academic job market and may contribute to reduced opportunities to achieve high academic positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Residents of care homes across the globe are affected by the spread of SARS-CoV-2 as they have been identified as a high-risk group and because they experienced strict social isolation regulations during the first wave of the pandemic. Social isolation of older people with poor physical and mental health is strongly associated with mental health problems and decreased life expectancy. Other research has shown that older people managed to adapt to the changes brought about by the pandemic and have linked this to the concept of resilience. The aim of this research project was to investigate how this applied to residents in care home settings during the first phases of the contact ban in Germany from sociology, developmental psychology and environmental gerontology perspectives, and to gain in-depth understanding of residents' experiences. This paper draws on structured interview data collected from residents in two care homes during early June 2020 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The findings show that their experiences were shaped by three factors: care home settings and the approach of staff to handling the contact ban; biographical sense of resilience; and a hierarchy of life issues. The findings highlight the importance of locally specific response mechanisms in care homes, agency and belonging of residents despite health-related limitations and the importance of a critical (gendered) lens on understanding their experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper summarises the results of 4 national surveys on the numbers, utilisation and technique of myocardial perfusion SPECT (MPS) from 2012 to 2021. Methods: A one-page questionnaire for information on MPS in 2012, 2015, 2018 and 2021 was sent to German centres practising nuclear medicine. To check for representativeness, the numbers obtained were related to official annual data and furthermore to the numbers of invasive coronary angiography procedures (ICA). Results: MPS examinations increased by > 40% from 2012 to 2021 and showed a centralisation with increasing MPS per centre. In 2020, a mild impact of the COVID-19 pandemic could be observed in the form of only a slight MPS increase, which was compensated in the following year. Outpatient care cardiologists represent the most important referrer (70%). Mostly, 2-day protocols were used. One-day protocols and stress-only protocols showed insignificant changes. The use of exercise stress decreased steadily. In 2021, exercise stress was replaced by pharmacological stress as the most frequent stress modality. Camera systems showed a shift to more SPECT-CT systems. The use of gated SPECT increased to almost 90%. Quantitative scoring showed an increasing acceptance. The ratio of invasive coronary angiographies (ICA) to MPS was between 3.9 and 4.5. A significant proportion of ICA in the context of CCS (chronic coronary syndrome) was performed without prior testing for ischaemia. Conclusion: The 2012 to 2021 MPS surveys reveal a continuously growing number of examinations with only a mild temporary effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and a centralisation with increasing numbers per centre. Performance and technical data reveal a high-grade adherence of MPS practice to the current ESC guideline. A large potential of non-invasive diagnostics remains for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper examines the adoption of digital services for the vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. Based on a survey in Germany's federal state with the highest vaccination rate, which used digital vaccination services, its platform configuration and adoption barriers are analyzed to understand existing and future levers for optimizing vaccination success. Though technological adoption and resistance models have been originally developed for consumer-goods markets, this study gives empirical evidence especially for the applicability of an adjusted model explaining platform adoption for vaccination services and for digital health services in general. In this model, the configuration areas of personalization, communication, and data management have a remarkable effect to lower adoption barriers, but only functional and psychological factors affect the adoption intention. Above all, the usability barrier stands out with the strongest effect, while the often-cited value barrier is not significant at all. Personalization is found to be the most important factor for managing the usability barrier and thus for addressing the needs, preferences, situation, and, ultimately, the adoption of the citizens as users. Implications are given for policy makers and managers in such a pandemic crisis to focus on the click flow and server-to-human interaction rather than emphasizing value messages or touching traditional factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The international collaboration study PRICOV-19 –Primary Health Care in times of COVID-19 aims to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the organisation of primary health care. The German part focuses on the subjective perceptions of general practitioners on primary health care and the impact of political measures during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Within this survey, the "open text field" of the questionnaire was utilised remarkably frequently and extensively by the respondents. It became clear that the content that was named needed to be analysed in an exploratory manner. Accordingly, this paper addresses the following question: What preoccupies general practitioners in Germany during COVID-19 that we have not yet asked them enough? Methods: The data collection took place throughout Germany from 01.02.2021 to 28.02.2021with a quantitative online questionnaire consisting of 53 items arranged across six topics as well as an "open text field" for further comments. The questionnaire's open text field was analysed following the premises of the qualitative content analysis. Results: The topics discussed by the respondents were: insufficient support from health policies, not being prioritised and involved in the vaccination strategy, feeling insufficient prepared, that infrastructural changes and financial concerns threatened the practice, and perceiving the own role as important, as well as that health policies affected the wellbeing of the respondents. One of the main points was the way general practitioners were not sufficiently acknowledged for their contribution to ensuring high-quality care during the pandemic. Discussion: German general practitioners perceived their work and role as highly relevant during the COVID-19 pandemic. In controversy with their perception, they described political conditions in which they were the ones who contributed significantly to the fight against the pandemic but were not given enough recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The COVID-19 pandemic has posed many challenges, especially for families. Both the public and the scientific community are currently discussing the extent to which school closings have worsened existing social differences, especially with regard to children's academic and socio-emotional development. At the same time, parents have had to manage childcare and home schooling alongside their jobs and personal burdens posed by the pandemic. Parents' possibilities for meeting these cognitive and emotional challenges might also depend on the different conditions in families. For this reason, the present paper investigates the structural and process characteristics of the family as well as children's and parents' psychological characteristics that predict how parents assess their ability to support their child's learning during homeschooling as well as parents' perceived emotional stress caused by school closure. The study analyses data of the Newborn Cohort Study of the German National Educational Panel Study. The two dependent variables (self-assessment of abilities, perceived stress) were measured during the COVID-19 pandemic after the first school closure in Germany, at a time when the children of this cohort were attending second grade. Besides a number of control variables (including the child's struggle with home schooling), families' structural characteristics [socioeconomic status (SES), education], process characteristics (home learning environment, HLE), parents' psychological characteristics (preceding psychological stress), and the child's psychological characteristics (self-regulation, school-related independence) from earlier waves were included as predictors. The results of structural equation models show that perceived stress was associated with structural factors and the preceding psychological stress of parents. Parents with higher preceding stress reported higher perceived stress. Interestingly, higher-educated parents also reported more stress than lower educated parents during the pandemic. The effect was the other way around for SES – parents with lower SES reported more stress than parents with higher SES. The self-reported abilities to support the learning of the child seemed to be mainly predicted by the parent's education as well as preceding psychological stress. To sum up, the results identify important aspects that determine how parents handle the challenges of the school closures. Especially, socially disadvantaged families carry their burden into the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How distancing requirements in the COVID-19 pandemic transformed intimate relationships is under-researched. Against the backdrop of research on the HIV pandemic, the paper departs from the assumption that decreased legitimacy of intimate arrangements and subjective worry about the likeliness of infection may reduce the frequency of multiple sexual contact and intimate well-being during the pandemic. Based on findings from a quantitative study which included measures of risk perception, frequency of contact with sexual partners and communities, concealment, as well as relationship quality in Austria and Germany, this paper examines sexual behaviour in association with relationship status and sexual identity. Analysing data from a convenience sample of 4,709 respondents, of whom 24 per cent identified as LGBQA+, 2 per cent as non-binary, and 6 per cent as consensually non-monogamous, bivariate analysis found significant differences in social distancing, frequency of contact with sexual communities and satisfaction with current sex life. Text analysis of the survey's open-ended responses indicates monogamisation due to declined legitimacy of less conventional intimate arrangements during the pandemic. Findings point to the importance of the sexual morality that defined pandemic experiences in times of HIV for understanding normative pressure on intimate life during COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Earnings quality is of great concern to corporate stakeholders, including capital providers in international markets with widely varying regulatory pedigrees and ownership patterns. This paper aims to examine the association between the cost of equity capital and earnings quality, contextualised via tests that incorporate the potential for moderating effects around institutional settings. The analysis focuses on and compares evidence relating to (common law) UK/US firms and (civil law) German firms over the period 2005–2018 and seeks to identify whether, given institutional dissimilarities, significant differences exist between the two settings. Design/methodology/approach: First, the authors undertake a review of the extant literature on the link between earnings quality and the cost of capital. Second, using a sample of 948 listed companies from the USA, the UK and Germany over the period 2005 to 2018, the authors estimate four implied cost of equity capital proxies. The relationship between companies' cost of equity capital and their earnings quality is then investigated. Findings: Consistent with theoretical reasoning and prior empirical analyses, the authors find a statistically negative association between earnings quality, evidenced by information relating to accruals and the cost of equity capital. However, when they extend the analysis by investigating the combined effect of institutional ownership and earnings quality on financing cost, the impact – while negative overall – is found to vary across legal backdrops. Research limitations/implications: This paper uses institutional ownership as a mediating variable in the association between earnings quality and the cost of equity capital, but this is not intended to suggest that other measures may be of relevance here and additional research might usefully expand the analysis to incorporate other forms of ownership including state and foreign bases. Second, and suggestive of another avenue for developing the work presented in the study, the authors have used accrual measures of earnings quality. Practical implications: The results are shown to provide potentially important insights for policymakers, creditors and investors about the consequences of earnings quality variability. The results should be of interest to firms seeking to reduce their financing costs and retain financial viability in the wake of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Originality/value: The reported findings extends the single-country results of Eliwa et al. (2016) for the UK firms and Francis et al. (2005) for the USA, whereby both reported that the cost of equity capital is negatively associated with earnings quality attributes. Second, in a further increment to the extant literature (particularly Francis et al., 2005 and Eliwa et al., 2016), the authors find the effect of institutional ownership to be influential, with a significantly positive impact on the association between earnings quality and the cost of equity capital, suggesting in turn that institutional ownership can improve firms' ability to secure cheaper funding by virtue of robust monitoring. While this result holds for the whole sample (the USA, the UK and Germany), country-level analysis shows that the result holds only for the common law countries (the UK and the USA) and not for Germany, consistent with the notion that extant legal systems are a determining factor in this context. This novel finding points to a role for institutional investors in watching and improving the quality of financial reports that are valued by the market in its price formation activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, the German coworking industry has grown rapidly as one of the fastest-growing coworking markets globally. The pandemic, however, has brought the industry to an abrupt halt. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to explore the impact the pandemic has had so far on German coworking spaces. Design/methodology/approach: Using an online questionnaire, quantitative data from 38 coworking space owners, operators and employees of a total of 77 spaces in Germany has been collected regarding their situation before, during and after the peak of the first wave of the pandemic from Spring until Summer 2020. The data has been analyzed using descriptive statistics. Findings: The reported income losses significantly outweigh a decrease in costs of the spaces. Nevertheless, the member base seems rather unaffected, and coworking spaces are exploring adaptations to their businesses with a strong shift to the digital environment. Fear of re-imposed governmental restrictions is evident, as well as justified with a looming second infection wave. Research limitations/implications: Due to the sample size, the data may lack generalizability. Therefore, recommendations for future research are provided. Originality/value: Data on the impact of the pandemic on coworking spaces is scarce. This paper provides a first necessary overview for the industry as well as the academic field to allow for action to be taken. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A good health care system and, especially, the provision of efficient hospital care are the goals of national and regional health policies. However, the scope of general hospital care in the 16 federal states in Germany varies considerably from region to region. The objectives of this paper are to evaluate the technical efficiencies of all general hospitals of the 16 federal states for the period from 2015 to 2020, to find out the relation between the exogenous factors and score of efficiency, and also the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the results of the technical efficiency of hospital care in the German states. Methods: A two-step approach was used. First, an input-oriented Data Envelopment Analysis model with constant returns to scale and variable returns to scale was applied for the 6-year period from 2015 to 2020. The calculation of technical efficiency according to the input-oriented DEA model contains the three components—total technical efficiency (TTE), pure technical efficiency (PTE) and scale efficiency (SE). In the second stage, the influence of exogenous variables on the previously determined technical efficiency was evaluated by applying the tobit regression analysis. Results: Although the level of average technical efficiency of about 90% is high, total technical efficiency deteriorated steadily from 2015 to 2020. Its lowest point at around 78%, was in the year 2020. The deterioration of the average technical efficiency is notably influenced by the lower results in the years 2019 and 2020. The decomposition of technical efficiency also revealed that the deterioration of overall average efficiency was influenced by both pure technical efficiency (PTE) and scale efficiency (SE). Based on the tobit regression analysis performed, it was possible to conclude that the change in the efficiency score can be explained by the influence of exogenous factors only from 6.4% for overall efficiency and from 7.1% for scale efficiency. Conclusions: The results of the analysis of the overall technical efficiency reveal that the aggregated data of all general hospitals of all 16 federal states show a steadily worsening total technical efficiency every year since 2015. Although, especially, the deterioration of the year 2020 with the occurrence of COVID-19 pandemic, contributes to a deteriorated efficiency average, the deterioration of the efficiency values, based on the analysis performed, is also observable between the years 2016 and 2019. Considering the output generated, for inefficient units and the relevant policy authorities in the hospital sector, it can be recommended that the number of beds and in particular the number of physicians, should be reduced as inputs. Based on this study, it is also recommended that decisions to increase the efficiency of general hospitals should be made with consideration of exogenous factors such as the change in the number of general hospitals or the population density in the respective state, as these had explanatory value in connection with the increase in efficiency values. Due to the wide variation in the size of the federal states, the recommendation is more appropriate for federal states with low population density. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Conspiracy beliefs have become widespread throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Previous studies have shown that endorsing conspiracy beliefs leads to lower protective guideline adherence (i.e., wearing face masks), posing a threat to public health measures. The current study expands this research across the lifespan, i.e., in a sample of adolescents with mental health problems. Here, we investigated the association between conspiracy beliefs and guideline adherence while also exploring the predictors of conspiracy beliefs. Methods: N = 93 adolescent psychiatric outpatients (57% female, mean age: 15.8) were assessed using anonymous paper–pencil questionnaires. Endorsement of generic and COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs was assessed, in addition to items measuring adherence to protective guidelines and mental health (stress, depressive symptoms, emotional/behavioral problems, and adverse childhood experiences). Multiple regressions and supervised machine learning (conditional random forests) were used for analyses. Results: Fourteen percent of our sample fully endorsed at least one COVID-19 conspiracy theory, while protective guidelines adherence was relatively high (M = 4.92, on a scale from 1 to 7). The endorsement of COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs—but not of generic conspiracy beliefs—was associated with lower guideline adherence (β = − 0.32, 95% CI − 0.53 to − 0.11, p <.001). Conditional random forests suggested that adverse childhood experiences and peer and conduct problems were relevant predictors of both conspiracy belief categories. Conclusion: While a significant proportion of our sample of adolescents in psychiatric treatment endorsed conspiracy beliefs, the majority did not. Furthermore, and to some degree, contrary to public perception, we found that adolescents show relatively good adherence to public health measures—even while experiencing a high degree of mental distress. The predictive value of adverse childhood experiences and peer/conduct problems for conspiracy beliefs might be explained by compensatory mechanisms to ensure the safety, structure, and inclusion that conspiracies provide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Given the nature of the spread of SARS-CoV-2, strong regional patterns in the fatal consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic related to local characteristics such as population and health care infrastructures were to be expected. In this paper we conduct a detailed examination of the spatial correlation of deaths in the first year of the pandemic in two neighbouring countries – Germany and Poland, which, among high income countries, seem particularly different in terms of the death toll associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis aims to yield evidence that spatial patterns of mortality can provide important clues as to the reasons behind significant differences in the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in these two countries. Methods: Based on official health and population statistics on the level of counties, we explore the spatial nature of mortality in 2020 in the two countries – which, as we show, reflects important contextual differences. We investigate three different measures of deaths: the officially recorded COVID-19 deaths, the total values of excessive deaths and the difference between the two. We link them to important pre-pandemic regional characteristics such as population, health care and economic conditions in multivariate spatial autoregressive models. From the point of view of pandemic related fatalities we stress the distinction between direct and indirect consequences of COVID-19, separating the latter further into two types, the spatial nature of which is likely to differ. Results: The COVID-19 pandemic led to much more excess deaths in Poland than in Germany. Detailed spatial analysis of deaths at the regional level shows a consistent pattern of deaths officially registered as related to COVID-19. For excess deaths, however, we find strong spatial correlation in Germany but little such evidence in Poland. Conclusions: In contrast to Germany, for Poland we do not observe the expected spatial pattern of total excess deaths and the excess deaths over and above the official COVID-19 deaths. This difference cannot be explained by pre-pandemic regional factors such as economic and population structures or by healthcare infrastructure. The findings point to the need for alternative explanations related to the Polish policy reaction to the pandemic and failures in the areas of healthcare and public health, which resulted in a massive loss of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employing new and original survey data collected in three waves (April/May and November 2020 as well as May 2021) in Germany, this paper studies the dynamics of individual-level support for additional health care spending. A first major finding is that, so far, health care spending preferences have not radically changed during the Covid-19 pandemic, at least at the aggregate level. A more detailed analysis reveals, secondly, that individual-level support for additional spending on health care is strongly conditioned by performance perceptions and, to a lesser extent, general political trust. Citizens who regard the system as badly (well) prepared to cope with the crisis are more likely to support (oppose) additional spending. Higher levels of political trust are also positively associated with spending support, but to a lesser degree. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of these findings for policy-making and welfare state politics in the post-pandemic era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Triggered by the spread of the Coronavirus and the lockdown of universities in spring 2020, universities were required to provide infrastructure for digital teaching within a very short time. Further, all university members needed to develop knowledge and skills for teaching online. This paper presents data from the cross-cultural CRTS-Study (Coronavirus-Related Teaching Situation Study), which compares the experiences, attitudes and needs of university teachers in Germany and Argentina during the first lockdown in the context of the Coronavirus pandemic. The study has been carried out in spring 2020 as a cross-sectional online survey study with university teachers in Germany and Argentina (N = 728). The overall picture reveals a mostly successful implementation of online teaching for university teachers in both countries, with Argentinian university teachers reporting a slightly more positive perspective and slightly higher self-efficacy beliefs in online teaching when compared with the German colleagues. The results of regression analysis hint at the relevance of prior personal experience and institutional support for self-efficacy beliefs in online teaching for both samples. In conclusion, individual experience and training as well as supportive institutional conditions seem to be relevant for the development of digital teaching at universities in both countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the access to healthcare for children and adolescents with three common chronic diseases (type-1 diabetes (T1D), obesity, or juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA)) within the 4th (Delta), 5th (Omicron), and beginning of the 6th (Omicron) wave (June 2021 until July 2022) of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany in a cross-sectional study using three national patient registries. A paper-and-pencil questionnaire was given to parents of pediatric patients (<21 years) during the routine check-ups. The questionnaire contains self-constructed items assessing the frequency of healthcare appointments and cancellations, remote healthcare, and satisfaction with healthcare. In total, 905 parents participated in the T1D-sample, 175 in the obesity-sample, and 786 in the JIA-sample. In general, satisfaction with healthcare (scale: 0–10; 10 reflecting the highest satisfaction) was quite high (median values: T1D 10, JIA 10, obesity 8.5). The proportion of children and adolescents with canceled appointments was relatively small (T1D 14.1%, JIA 11.1%, obesity 20%), with a median of 1 missed appointment, respectively. Only a few parents (T1D 8.6%; obesity 13.1%; JIA 5%) reported obstacles regarding health services during the pandemic. To conclude, it seems that access to healthcare was largely preserved for children and adolescents with chronic health conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crises like the COVID-19 pandemic bring along challenges for individuals and society. In the case of Germany, vaccination against COVID-19 was identified as the primary measure to overcome the pandemic. This put those individuals in the spotlight who did not decide for it. This paper aims to analyze how vaccinated people perceived the group of unvaccinated individuals and whether they wished to punish those who did not contribute to ending the pandemic by vaccination. For this purpose, an online survey was conducted in the spring of 2022. Two hundred eighty-five answered the questionnaire. As a result, many respondents tried to make the best of the pandemic, although many reported negative emotions. Stereotypes of unvaccinated individuals revealed prejudices. Data also demonstrate an attempt to reduce contact with unvaccinated individuals as far as possible and an openness to discrimination or a desire for punishment. Although data result from a relatively small study, they can provide an illustrative example that can stimulate considerations of possible consequences and to further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]