The ecological framework of population health - Adding public trust as a forcing factor for U.S. life expectancy and COVID-19 mortality.

Ross Arena, Shuaijie Wang, Colin Woodard, Tanvi Bhatt, Nicolaas P Pronk

Abstract read

In one paragraph

Article in Public health in practice (Oxford, England), 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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0citing papers in PubMed

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1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

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2 · The registry

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3 · Its place in the literature

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0 citing papers in PubMed.

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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Ross ArenaDepartment of Physical Therapy, University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.

Shuaijie WangDepartment of Physical Therapy, University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.

Colin WoodardNationhood Lab, Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy, Salve Regina University, Newport, RI, USA.

Tanvi BhattDepartment of Physical Therapy, University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.

Nicolaas P PronkHealthy Living for Pandemic Event Protection (HL - PIVOT) Network, Chicago, IL, USA.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Objectives: What are the factors that Study design: Descriptive, cross-sectional, retrospective analysis. Methods: The current study utilized several U.S. county-level datasets representing the Ecological Framework of Population Health, including measures of culture, politics, policy, socioeconomics, lifestyle behaviors, and both chronic disease risk factors and diagnoses. A social media generated index of social capital, i.e., public trust, was added to the framework as a crosscutting variable to determine its efficacy in predicting county-level life expectancy and COVID-19 mortality rates using a non-linear artificial intelligence statistical method. Results: Analysis revealed significance in predicting both life expectancy (R Conclusions: The present study expands the body of work exploring forcing factors of population health by demonstrating the potential utility of a measure of public trust, derived from social media posts and integrated into the Ecological Framework of Population Health, in predicting important U.S. county-level health outcomes.

Indexed as

Chronic diseaseHealth messagingLifestyle behaviorsPublic healthSocial media

Identifiers

PMID42079384

DOI10.1016/j.puhip.2026.100791

PMCPMC13133975

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.