The company Link and Communication, who make an AI health advisor mobile app called Calomama, surveyed their users about mental and physical health changes since the State of Emergency was declared.
I’m working from home, and my walking distance has been reduced from an average of 10,000 steps to about 500 or so. However, it’s been great for my stress levels, even though I find myself doing much more overtime than I did in the office. Due to the wonders of modern technology, I can log into my beefy work PC and do 95% of what I need to do.
Even better, the company has extended work at home for the forseeable future; the target is less than 50% per team commuting, but I think our team is under 10% right now.
Here’s a random Japan home office that is much more exiting than mine:
Research results
Q1: How has your working status changed? (Sample size=6,302)
Working Not working Before Corona 85% 15% After State of Emergency 76% 24% Note that full time is defined as working more than 6 hours a day, part time is less than 6 hours, and not working is zero hours.
Q2: How has your working status changed since COVID-19? (Sample size=5,356, employed before COVID-19)
Full time Part time Not working Before Corona 88% 12% NA After State of Emergency 72% 16% 11% Q3: Have you been working at home since the state of emergency was declared? (Sample size=4,748)
Full time Part time Work at home 36% 54% Work on site 64% 45% Q4: Do you have any mental worries? (Sample size=6,302)
Yes No All 44.7% 55.3% Full time 42.7% 57.3% Part time 46.3% 53.7% Out of work 48.9% 51.1% Q4A: Do you have any mental worries? (Sample size=3,894, full time)
Yes Work from home, hours increased 50.0% Work from home, hours unchanged 41.6% Work from home, hours decreased 43.2% Work on site, hours increased 56.6% Work on site, hours unchanged 40.4% Work on site, hours decreased 43.4% Q4B: Do you have any mental worries? (Sample size=882, part time)
Yes Work from home, hours increased 56.3% Work from home, hours unchanged 41.9% Work from home, hours decreased 47.9% Work on site, hours increased 58.3% Work on site, hours unchanged 41.8% Work on site, hours decreased 49.1% Mental worries were defined as various depression-related symptoms, such as insomnia, lack of get-up-and-go, lack of interest in things, or feelings of isolation.
Note that the next two results were collected from data recorded in the application, not directly asked of the users.
Q5: On average how much do you drink? (Sample size=4,366)
Don’t drink, drink very little (under 2gm ethanol daily) 65% Drink responsibly (under 20gm ethanol daily) 24% Drink too much (over 20gm ethanol daily) 11% People who lost their jobs were more likely to be drinking to excess, as were people working from home whose work hours had increased.
Q6: On average, how many steps per day have you walked? (Sample size=4,676)
< 3,000 3,000 – 6,000 6,000 – 9,000 > 9,000 January 8.8% 20.5% 18.0% 15.8% February 11.0% 23.2% 20.4% 17.0% March 14.8% 28.0% 21.5% 16.2% April 24.6% 34.5% 20.4% 16.1% May 28.7% 23.8% 19.0% 16.9% Despite these figures being presented on stacked bar graphs going up to 100%, you will note that the figures don’t add up. As the data was collected from user logs, perhaps the missing percentage were from people with unusable logs for certain months.
Demographics
The survey itself was conducted between the 30th of April and the 8th of May 2020. Furthermore, historical data from their application logs from 19th of January to the 16th of May 2020. 6,302 users of their app completed the survey and granted permission for their logs to be analysed. The sample had a 3:7 male-to-female ratio, 8% of them were in their teens, 13% in their twenties, 22% in their thirties, 24% in their forties, 23% in their fifties, and 9% aged sixty or older.
Of the sample, 4,676 people had usable pedometer data, and 4,366 had recorded 20% or more of their meals, which should have included drink consumed.
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