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It is challenging to quantitatively measure the health vulnerability and risk factors of refugees and migrants residing outside of formal settlement settings. For hard-to-reach populations without available sampling frames, researchers have increasingly turned to novel sampling and statistical methods, like respondent-driven sampling (RDS). "Standard" RDS is typically conducted face-to-face at fixed sites. However, during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, face-to-face survey methods and recruitment approaches posed high potential risk of virus transmission and infection, making remote RDS approaches optimal. In this paper, we explore the feasibility of implementing telephone and Internet RDS strategies to assess challenges faced by Venezuelan refugees and migrants in the city of Bogotá, Colombia's capital, and the department of Norte de Santander, the main Venezuelan-Colombian border crossing site. We describe RDS assumptions, survey design, formative research, and the implementation of both strategies and present diagnostics for determining whether assumptions are met. Phone-based recruitment strategies in both locations and the Internet strategy in Bogotá achieved their calculated sample size; however, the Internet strategy in Norte de Santander did not. Most RDS assumptions were sufficiently met at sites where sample sizes were reached. These surveys provide valuable lessons for implementing innovative remote strategies with which to study hard-to-reach populations such as refugees and migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes some indicators of the Colombian educational system considering the effect of the pandemic and assesses the causal effect of an alternation plan between face-to-face and remote education, conducted in 2020, on the results of an achievement test. Indicators reveal that the pandemic caused a greater demand for education services in public schools, increased dropout, and repetition rates, and widened the gaps in academic performance. The causal empirical exercise indicates that the students who participated in the experiment obtained, on average, better results in the achievement test compared to students who remained in the non-face-to-face scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims an analysis about the impact of the technology implementation in the justice administration in Colombia from the changes introduced by the fourt industry revolution. although the use of TICs for a better development of justice isn´t a legal mandate, with the emergency derived from COVID-19, it was necessary to use different shock strategies against the possibility of physical contact in the judicial services. The main objective is to determinate the impact caused by the changes presented in the use of technology generated by the COVID-19 in Colombian justice: the application of Information and communication technologies (TICs) to the Law. In this context, it been used an analytical documentary approach by the study of juridical texts, specialized web pages and other documents that allow to go deeper in the subject. As a main conslusion, are evidente new cultural patterns and new autonomous regulations forms of human behavior, juridical traffic, wich are linked to data ownership, intimacy rigths, strategic and politic advantages that may arise from its use among other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several repercussions of the COVID‐19 pandemic and its subsequent isolation period have been reported worldwide. In this paper, we analyze the behavioral and emotional effects of 1 year of coronavirus‐related lockdown in Colombia. A cross‐sectional correlational design was used on a sample of 1853 participants from different regions, and with different levels of education, income, and employment situations. We applied the fear of coronavirus scale, the use of preventive behaviors scale, and a scale to measure pleasant and unpleasant emotions based on the circumplex model of affect. Our data shows that women, participants who were unemployed during the lockdown, and participants that study or work in legal, computational, or related fields, have been more affected in terms of unpleasant emotions. In addition, we observed a trend towards a relation between higher income and educational levels with lower degrees of fear, higher degrees of pleasant emotions, and a greater use of preventive behaviors related to the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers and practitioners recognise the importance of context when implementing healthcare interventions, but the influence of wider environment is rarely mapped. This paper identifies the country and policy-related factors potentially explaining the country differences in outcomes of an intervention focused on improving detection and management of heavy alcohol use in primary care in Colombia, Mexico and Peru. Qualitative data obtained through interviews, logbooks and document analysis are used to explain quantitative data on number of alcohol screenings and screening providers in each of the countries. Existing alcohol screening standards in Mexico, and policy prioritisation of primary care and consideration of alcohol as a public health issue in Colombia and Mexico positively contributed to the outcome, while the COVID-19 pandemic had a negative impact. In Peru, the context was unsupportive due to a combination of: political instability amongst regional health authorities; lack of focus on strengthening primary care due to the expansion of community mental health centres; alcohol considered as an addiction rather than a public health issue; and the impact of COVID-19 on healthcare. We found that wider environment-related factors interacted with the intervention implemented and can help explain country differences in outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of a systematic review of the literature (SLR) on the topic Covid-19 socio-political effects worldwide and in Colombia. The objective was to verify the state of the art of scientific production related to this field of study. To achieve the proposed end, 1556 published researches were identified, 6 with emphasis on Colombia and 1550 worldwide in the period between 2017 and 2023. With the scientific mapping, the periods and volumes of articles, authors, journals, countries, organizations, thematic areas and analysis of words and citations were analyzed. The dataset was obtained with the Scopus index database and processed with the statistical programs, Excel and Rstudio with its bibliométrix package. The results show among the countries that stand out the most worldwide the United States, the United Kingdom and China, in the case of Colombia it was found that its frequency of appearance in the field of study is (9) directly or indirectly, the same as Spain (6) y Pakistan (3). Wang Y, Wang X and Flahault, were the authors with the most impact. The journals that published the most articles were the International journal of environmental research and public health, Plos one and The Lancet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The health crisis caused by the covid-19 pandemic has affected the entire world population globally and the consequences have been different in each country. Predictably, the most vulnerable populations have suffered the most devastating consequences in terms of health, unemployment and increased inequality. In some countries the informal economy has become larger than the formal economy. The Social and Solidarity Economy (hereafter SSE) has also suffered the consequences caused by covid-19, but it has also been a response to the multiple situations that have occurred in all countries. The aim of this paper is to examine the role of the SSE at the international level by looking at two issues: one, to examine the responses of the SSE to the crisis caused by the covid-19 pandemic and two, to analyse the role of the SSE in future social and economic recovery. To this end, a comparative analysis is made of the responses, strategies and role of the social economy in different territories, Quebec, Colombia and Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The trucking industry is the backbone of domestic supply chains. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, road transportation has been essential to guarantee the supply of basic goods to confined urban areas. However, the connectivity of the trucking network can also act as an efficient virus spreader. This paper applies network science to uncover the characteristics of the trucking network in one major Latin American country −Colombia− and provides evidence on freight networks' ability to spread contagious diseases spatially. Network metrics, official COVID-19 records at the municipality level, and a zero-inflated negative binomial model are used to test the association between network topology and confirmed COVID-19 cases. Results suggest that: (i) the number of COVID-19 cases in a municipality is linked to its level and type of network centrality; and (ii) being a port-city and a primary economic hub in the trucking network is associated with a higher probability of contracting earlier a pandemic. Based on these results, a risk-based approach is proposed to help policymakers implement containment measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses direct management of COVID-19 in Brazil, Colombia and Peru, the three largest countries in the Western Amazon region. Using information gathered from different sources and analysing them through comparative case studies and content analysis, this study reveals the scale of disruption endured by Indigenous communities living in the region caused by COVID-19. While findings identify several shortcomings and failures in policies adopted by national and local governments in dealing with the pandemic, they also highlight how some Latin American countries used the crisis to introduce reforms to deepen neoliberal New Public Management (NPM) policies and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced organizations to adapt their different processes to the dynamics of virtuality. Thus, in the specific case of the educational context, the remote presence methodology has been implemented with the support of the advantages provided by Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Despite the fact that ICTs dynamise the different processes of organizations, it has been shown that they can affect the stress of company workers. This paper presents the development of a technostress analysis study applied to the educational context, taking as a case study an educational institution from Popayán-Colombia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides evidence for the different potential effects of covid-19 on formal and informal employment, using the work-from-home (Dingel & Neiman, 2020; Saltiel, 2020) and the proximity occupation approaches (Mongey et al., 2020) in Colombia. We found that only 13 % of informal employment positions can be performed from home (remotely) and that the figure for formal employment is twice as large (20 %). We recoded the raw occupational responses of the Colombian Household Survey to a granular level to directly combine occupational information from two sources: O*net and step. We then calculated work-from-home estimates, extracting cohesive results from both sources. We investigated how personal and household characteristics relate to work-from-home and proximity and provide sound evidence for a larger effect on the informal population and its association with vulnerability (lower income and education levels, no internet access, poor working conditions). Standard employment policies will not impact directly on the most vulnerable populations in developing countries where informal employment is the norm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years the literature on mobility of care has rapidly expanded, and the concept offers a powerful lens to highlight how everyday mobilities are organised, undertaken, and experienced in gendered ways. The concept can nonetheless benefit from further theoretical development. In this paper we enrich the mobility of care concept by drawing on influential conceptualisations of care from feminist theory and analysis of data collected during the COVID-19 lockdown among a group of 40 low-income women living in peri-urban areas of Itagüí, a municipality in the south of the Medellín metropolitan area, Colombia. Through this approach we first argue that relying on a taxonomy of trip purposes limits the understanding of the role of care in urban mobilities and risks underestimating the prevalence of mobility of care. Second, we suggest that activities of self-care also generate mobility of care and that their consideration allows practices and experiences of receiving care to be considered. Finally, we show how care activities are part of, and generate, intertwined mobilities and immobilities, and argue that rendering visible the full extent of mobilities of care demands that careful consideration be given to immobilities as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of COVID-19 on marginalised communities and its effects on the provision of public services. Focusing on two coal mining regions in Colombia during the pandemic crisis, and examining Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities, we analyze the provision of public services at a local level, identifying both shortcomings and resilience. Findings show that the lack of resilient public services amplified the effects of COVID-19 and its containment measures, exacerbating existing structural inequalities within local marginalised communities. It also reinforced the control exercised by coal mining companies within local economies. However, the substantial lack of public service provision also provided space for the development and strengthening of several resilience strategies among local communities, such as solidarity networks and schemes and the revitalization of local environmental knowledge. The study identifies multiple shortcomings in how the national and local administrations handled the COVID-19 outbreak and highlights the potential of enhancing resilience in public services to support marginalised communities in times of crisis. • COVID-19 affected the delivery of public services at a national and local level in Colombia. • COVID-19 further aggravated living conditions of mining communities in the country. • Multinational companies replaced the government in delivering services to mining communities. • But the crisis gave an incentive to these communities to adopt resilient strategies themselves. • More resilient public services in Colombia are needed to help marginalised communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Positive sentiments towards urban green spaces (UGS) unequivocally increased worldwide amid COVID-19. In contrast, this paper documents that views on mobility restrictions applicable to UGS are of a contested nature. That is, while residents unambiguously report positive sentiments towards UGS, they do not share views on how to administer access to UGS—which is a matter of public policy. These contesting views reflect opposite demands that managers of UGS had to balance during the pandemic as they faced the challenge of reducing risk of spread while providing services that support physical and mental health of residents. The empirical analysis in this paper relies on views inferred through a text classification algorithm implemented on Twitter messages posted from January to October 2020, by urban residents in three Latin American countries—Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico—and Spain. The focus on Latin America is motivated by the documented lack of compliance with mobility restrictions; Spain works as a comparison point to learn differences with respect to other regions. Understanding and following in real-time the evolution of contesting views amid a pandemic is useful for managers and city planners to inform adaptation measures—e.g. communication strategies can be tailored to residents with specific views. • Amid COVID-19, social media showcased contesting views on mobility restrictions applicable to UGS. • Contesting views on regulation of access hold together with unambiguous increase in positive sentiments towards UGS. • These views reflect residents' stands with respect to how UGS should be used during a pandemic event. • Social media provides unstructured information to design and communicate adaptation measures in real-time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic unleashed a socioeconomic crisis in most countries, as well as strict restrictions on mobility and social distancing were implemented. The pandemic brought a severe socioeconomic shock -decreasing economic activity- and forced policy responses that affected the education sector -notably school closures-. There is scarce evidence on the implications of the pandemic and its socioeconomic consequences on learning inequality, particularly in the Latin-American context. The aim of this paper is to measure the change in learning inequality during the years of the pandemic (2020–2021) in Colombia. To measure learning inequality, we use the results of a standardize exam taken by all upper secondary education graduates in the country. To capture inequality, we use secondary-level students' characteristics, their households, and schools' characteristics. Our econometric results suggest an increase in learning inequality between 48% and 372% depending on the dimension studied, except for gender where learning inequality decreased. Moreover, through dynamic specifications, we determine that for all the analyzed dimensions the 2020–2021 period represents a change in the trend of learning inequality as in the periods prior to the pandemic inequality gaps decreased or, at least, remained constant. We conclude with concrete and immediate policy recommendations to target the learning processes of vulnerable students and bridge learning gaps. • The magnitude of the impacts of the pandemic were disproportionately large for vulnerable population groups. • In Colombia, the isolation policy included school closures and most schools remained closed during most of 2021. • We estimate changes in learning inequality by secondary-level students' characteristics, their households, and schools. • Learning inequality increased between 48% and 372% in Colombia, except for gender where it decreased. • For all the analyzed dimensions, the 2020–2021 period represents a change in the trend of learning inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]