Department of Social Medicine, Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, Ohio University, Grosvenor 311, Athens, OH, 45701, USA.
Department of Psychology, Ohio University, 22 Richland Avenue, Athens, OH, 45701, USA.
J Behav Med. 2021 Oct;44(5):641-652. doi: 10.1007/s10865-021-00226-w. Epub 2021 Apr 20.
A significant challenge in the United States' response to COVID-19 continues to be wide variation in the extent to which individuals believe the virus is a credible health threat and are willing to undertake measures to protect personal and public health. In this study, data were collected from a national sample of 1141 participants from the United States to examine how beliefs and behavioral responses to COVID-19 have been shaped by sociopolitical characteristics. The relationships between social predictors; perceived severity, knowledge, and fear of the virus; and health behaviors were tested using path analysis. Social characteristics significantly predicted perceived severity, knowledge, and fear, as well as health behaviors, even after controlling for an objective indicator of the risk of contracting the virus. Our findings suggest that perceptions and knowledge of the virus, especially believing that the virus poses a serious threat to one's individual health, are important determinants of behavior, but also that perceptions and knowledge are strongly driven by social and cultural factors above and beyond political affiliation.
在美国应对 COVID-19 的过程中，一个显著的挑战是个人对病毒的可信度和健康威胁的认知存在很大差异，并且愿意采取措施保护个人和公众健康。在这项研究中，从美国的一个全国性样本中收集了 1141 名参与者的数据，以研究社会政治特征如何影响对 COVID-19 的信念和行为反应。使用路径分析测试了社会预测因素；对病毒的严重程度、知识和恐惧的感知；以及健康行为之间的关系。即使在控制了感染病毒的风险的客观指标后，社会特征也显著预测了对病毒的严重程度、知识和恐惧，以及健康行为。我们的研究结果表明，对病毒的认知和知识，尤其是相信病毒对个人健康构成严重威胁，是行为的重要决定因素，但认知和知识也受到社会和文化因素的强烈驱动，而不仅仅是政治倾向。
