This interdisciplinary project combines disciplinary approaches from social epidemiology, psychology, social philosophy, and sociology in order to explore in real time the socio-economic and psychological determinants and consequences of the COVID-19 epidemic in France. It has two main objectives: 1) To describe the social epidemiology of the COVID-19 epidemic in France in demographic, socioeconomic and territorial terms 2) To examine the psychological, socio-cultural and economic consequences of forced isolation and social distancing at different times of confinement. Our working method, resolutely interdisciplinary, will consist in coordinating work Packages (WP), in three phases. In phase 1, we will define the concepts and variables common to the three WPs and proceed with data collection. In phase 2, we will implement quantitative analyses for social epidemiology and psychology, and qualitative analyses for philosophical and sociological research, ensuring the integration of our approaches at each stage of the analysis through regular interdisciplinary work meetings. In phase 3, we will work together to integrate and interpret our results and disseminate them. WP1 will retrieve medico-administrative data from public health and health agencies and conduct epidemiological analyses of the socio-demographic and socio-economic determinants of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths. The general aim of WP2 is to assess, in the general population, the psychological consequences of the containment of Covid-19 by a quantitative approach based on questionnaires. This will enable us to describe the psychological impact of Covid-19 and the associated containment on the psychological health of the French. WP3, based on a combination of qualitative approaches (questionnaires, semi-directive interviews and analysis of confinement narratives), will combine a sociological survey on the unequal conditions of confinement with a social philosophy reflection on issues of social justice in health prevention. The role of WP4 will be to integrate the approaches, concepts, variables and interpretations carried out in the complementary tasks of each WP in order to produce interdisciplinary expertise on the epidemic crisis and its management. This work will produce knowledge to guide public health decisions in times of crisis and to build public and population health strategies that are necessary and appropriate to accompany the next epidemic risks.

Heterogeneous profiles in Autism Spectrum (AS) have often been reported. One way to account for this heterogeneity is to distinguish AS individuals with and without speech onset delay (AS-SOD and AS-NoSOD). In fact, certain studies show superior abilities in visual tasks for AS-SOD individuals. In the VISUAL project we aim to show that AS-SOD individuals are visual thinkers, and therefore possess a visual cognitive style. This visual cognitive style will involve: higher voluntary mental imagery capacities such as higher ability to generate, maintain, inspect, and manipulate mental images; higher reports of involuntary mental imagery (synaesthesia, intrusive images); as well as a visual preference during learning, measured with eye tracking techniques. Moreover, we hypothesize that this visual cognitive style will have repercussions in the development of certain psychopathological comorbidities and will impact the daily life of these individuals. We will use interviews, questionnaires, and experimental tasks to implement the project. We will compare performance of AS-SOD participants, AS-NoSOD participants and control participants. Results from the VISUAL project will significantly contribute to the general comprehension of AS and the heterogeneity observed in this condition. Furthermore, by studying extensively mental imagery in two subgroups of AS participants, results will highlight existence of different cognitive profiles and also different psychopathological comorbidities in these two groups. This might have considerable impact in the development of functional evaluation tools for a specific intervention in these individuals. This study will be the first to evaluate the phenomenon of intrusive images in AS and its impact in daily life. By connecting the cognitive and psychopathological dimensions of visual thinking, results will clearly contribute to the prevention of certain psychopathological disorders (e.g., post-traumatic stress disorder) in AS but also to the development of adapted Intervention.