Madan Aditi, Bindal Sonal, Gupta Anil Kumar
Institute for Human Development, Okhla Industrial Estate, Phase 3, Delhi, 110020, India.
National Institute of Disaster Management, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, New Delhi, 110020, India.
Int J Disaster Risk Reduct. 2021 Sep;63:102468. doi: 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2021.102468. Epub 2021 Jul 16.
COVID-19 pandemic impacted countries all over the world calling as urgent need to enhance the capacity of individuals and communities to respond in such disease outbreaks. Public health interventions, such as social distancing could help to protect many vulnerable people and reduce secondary transmissions within the community. This research was undertaken as a longitudinal study to identify and comprehend the preferences given to different preventive measures adopted by individuals to ensure protection against the spread of coronavirus. An online survey was conducted with a representative sample of 176 stakeholders to identify practices and behaviour adopted by the key stakeholders working in the domains of water, health and disaster risk reduction to curb the spread of COVID-19 in Delhi-National Capital Territory of India (Delhi-NCT). Findings of this study shown preferred willingness to adopt sanitisation measures, often by cleaning their hands with soap and water, and restricting any movement inside and outside of the house. Three-fourth of the respondents considered washing their hands after returning from outside an important measure to limit the spread of the disease. Moreover, two-third of the people stopped ordering food from outside as a prevention strategy. Furthermore, only about 36% of the respondents showed interest in stocking up on grocery items as their most preferred choice, reflecting that this was considered to be the least important of all choices. Research outcomes of this study will help policymakers to better understand mitigation options that are used in the early and later stages of the lockdown to improve resilience from such viruses. Further, it will assist decision-makers to understand the range of individual-level practices adopted by stakeholders to mitigate disease transmission at the community level and inform the government's planning efforts in the future.
新冠疫情影响了世界各国，迫切需要提高个人和社区应对此类疾病爆发的能力。诸如保持社交距离等公共卫生干预措施有助于保护许多弱势群体，并减少社区内的二次传播。本研究作为一项纵向研究开展，旨在识别和理解个人对不同预防措施的偏好，以确保预防冠状病毒传播。对176名利益相关者的代表性样本进行了在线调查，以确定在水、健康和减少灾害风险领域工作的关键利益相关者为遏制印度德里国家首都辖区（德里-NCT）的新冠疫情传播而采取的做法和行为。本研究结果显示，人们更愿意采取卫生措施，通常是用肥皂和水洗手，并限制进出房屋。四分之三的受访者认为外出回来后洗手是限制疾病传播的一项重要措施。此外，三分之二的人停止从外部订购食物作为预防策略。此外，只有约36%的受访者表示有兴趣囤积食品杂货作为他们最优先的选择，这表明这被认为是所有选择中最不重要的。本研究的结果将有助于政策制定者更好地理解在封锁的早期和后期所采用的缓解措施，以提高对这类病毒的抵御能力。此外，它将帮助决策者了解利益相关者为减轻社区层面疾病传播而采取的一系列个人层面的做法，并为政府未来的规划工作提供信息。
