Department of Public Health, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, United States.
Front Public Health. 2023 Jun 2;11:1143342. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1143342. eCollection 2023.
College students routinely visit their families due to geographic proximity and their financial dependence. Consequently, the potential of transmitting COVID-19 from campus to their families' homes is consequential. Family members are key sources of support for one another in nearly all matters but there is little research uncovering the mechanisms by which families have protected each other in the pandemic.
Through an exploratory qualitative study, we examined the perspectives of a diverse, randomly sampled, group of students from a Midwestern University (pseudonym), in a college town, to identify COVID-19 prevention practices with their family members. We interviewed 33 students between the end of December 2020 and mid-April 2021 and conducted a thematic analysis through an iterative process.
Students navigated major differences in opinions and undertook significant actions in attempts to protect their family members from COVID-19 exposure. Students' actions were rooted in the greater good of public health; prosocial behavior was on display.
Larger public health initiatives could target the broader population by involving students as messengers.
由于地理位置的接近和经济上的依赖，大学生经常回家。因此，新冠病毒从校园传播到家庭成员家中的可能性是重大的。在几乎所有事情上，家庭成员都是彼此支持的重要来源，但很少有研究揭示家庭在大流行期间是如何保护彼此的。
通过一项探索性的定性研究，我们研究了来自中西部一所大学（化名）的一个多样化、随机抽样的学生群体的观点，以确定与家庭成员一起预防新冠病毒的做法。我们在 2020 年 12 月底至 2021 年 4 月中旬期间采访了 33 名学生，并通过迭代过程进行了主题分析。
学生们在意见上存在重大分歧，并采取了重大行动，试图保护他们的家庭成员免受新冠病毒的暴露。学生们的行动源于公共卫生的更大利益；表现出亲社会行为。
更大的公共卫生计划可以通过让学生作为信息传递者来吸引更广泛的人群。
