Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
King's College London, London, United Kingdom.
Int J Public Health. 2023 Mar 1;68:1604966. doi: 10.3389/ijph.2023.1604966. eCollection 2023.
Over 3 years of the COVID-19 pandemic, and intense societal and governmental response, a wealth of research has examined risk perceptions and public risk mitigation behaviours. The vast majority of this inquiry has focused on health risks. Nevertheless, as a "total social fact" influencing nearly every aspect of quotidian life, the pandemic engenders a wide range of risk perceptions. a survey (N = 4,206) of representative samples of the general public in five European countries (Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom), we explore perceptions of a range of personal/public health, economic, and societal risks. We also investigate the effects of perceptions of official governmental risk communication in one's country on risk perceptions and risk mitigation behaviours. Structural equation modelling reveals that whilst perceptions of effective risk communication directly increase behaviours that mitigate COVID-19 health risks, these same perceptions indirectly decrease behaviour frequency a mediated relationship with societal risk perceptions. The findings highlight the import of governmental authorities analysing and communicating about the range of risk perceptions citizens might have about a "total social fact" such as COVID-19.
在 COVID-19 大流行的 3 年多时间里，社会和政府采取了强烈的应对措施，大量研究考察了风险认知和公众风险缓解行为。绝大多数此类调查都集中在健康风险上。然而，作为一种“全面的社会事实”，影响着日常生活的方方面面，大流行引发了广泛的风险认知。通过对五个欧洲国家（德国、挪威、瑞典、瑞士、英国）的代表性公众样本（N=4206）进行调查，我们探讨了对一系列个人/公共卫生、经济和社会风险的看法。我们还研究了对本国官方政府风险沟通的看法对风险认知和风险缓解行为的影响。结构方程模型显示，虽然对有效风险沟通的看法直接增加了缓解 COVID-19 健康风险的行为，但这些相同的看法通过对社会风险认知的中介关系间接减少了行为频率。研究结果强调了政府当局分析和沟通公民对 COVID-19 等“全面社会事实”可能存在的各种风险认知的重要性。
