Department of Epidemiology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL.
Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
Ethn Dis. 2022 Jul 21;32(3):231-238. doi: 10.18865/ed.32.3.231. eCollection 2022 Summer.
To slow down the spread of SARS-CoV-2, many countries have instituted preventive approaches (masks, social distancing) as well as the distribution of vaccines. Adherence to these preventive measures is crucial to the success of controlling the pandemic but decreased perceptions of disease severity could limit adherence. The aim of our study was to observe changes in perceived personal severity and perceived community severity; the study also explored their predictors.
In a longitudinal study from an address-based probability survey in Detroit, we asked participants to rate their perceived severity of COVID-19 for themselves and for their community. In our analysis, 746 participants were queried across 5 waves of the Detroit Metro Area Communities Study surveys from March 31 to October 27 in 2020. We tested for trends in changes of self-reported perceived severity for themselves and for their community; we assessed the effects of different predictors of the two severities through mixed effects logistic regression models.
Our results highlight that the overall levels of perceived community and personal severity were decreasing over time even though both severities were fluctuating with rising confirmed case counts. Compared with non-Hispanic (NH) White Detroiters, NH Black Detroiters reported a higher perceived personal severity (OR: 5.30, 95% CI: 2.97, 9.47) but both groups reported similar levels of perceived community severity. We found steeper declines in perceived severity in NH White than NH Black Detroiters over time; the impact of education and income on perceived severity was attenuated in NH Black Detroiters compared with NH White Detroiters.
Our findings suggested that perceived severity for COVID-19 decreased through time and was affected by different factors among varied racial/ethnic groups. Future interventions to slow the pace of the pandemic should take into account perceived personal and community severities among varied ethnic/racial subgroups.
为了减缓 SARS-CoV-2 的传播，许多国家都采取了预防措施（口罩、社交距离）以及疫苗接种。遵守这些预防措施对于控制大流行的成功至关重要，但对疾病严重程度的认知下降可能会限制遵守程度。我们的研究目的是观察个人严重程度和社区严重程度感知的变化；该研究还探讨了它们的预测因素。
在底特律基于地址的概率调查的一项纵向研究中，我们要求参与者对自己和社区的 COVID-19 严重程度进行评分。在我们的分析中，在 2020 年 3 月 31 日至 10 月 27 日期间，对来自底特律都会区社区研究调查的 5 波中的 746 名参与者进行了查询。我们测试了自我报告的严重程度变化的趋势，分别为自己和社区；我们通过混合效应逻辑回归模型评估了两种严重程度的不同预测因素的影响。
我们的结果强调，即使两种严重程度都随着确诊病例数的上升而波动，但总体上社区和个人感知的严重程度随着时间的推移而降低。与非西班牙裔（NH）白人底特律人相比，NH 黑人底特律人报告的个人感知严重程度更高（OR：5.30，95%CI：2.97，9.47），但两组报告的社区感知严重程度相似。我们发现，随着时间的推移，NH 白人比 NH 黑人对感知严重程度的下降幅度更大；教育和收入对感知严重程度的影响在 NH 黑人中比 NH 白人中减弱。
我们的研究结果表明，COVID-19 的感知严重程度随时间降低，并受到不同种族/族裔群体中不同因素的影响。未来减缓大流行速度的干预措施应考虑不同族裔/种族亚群中个人和社区的严重程度。
