Department of Geography, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
JMIR Public Health Surveill. 2024 Aug 20;10:e55183. doi: 10.2196/55183.
The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly impacted all aspects of human life for over 3 years. Understanding the evolution of public risk perception during these periods is crucial. Few studies explore the mechanisms for reducing disease transmission due to risk perception. Thus, we hypothesize that changes in human mobility play a mediating role between risk perception and the progression of the pandemic.
The study aims to explore how various forms of human mobility, including essential, nonessential, and job-related behaviors, mediate the temporal relationships between risk perception and pandemic dynamics.
We used distributed-lag linear structural equation models to compare the mediating impact of human mobility across different virus variant periods. These models examined the temporal dynamics and time-lagged effects among risk perception, changes in mobility, and virus transmission in Taiwan, focusing on two distinct periods: (1) April-August 2021 (pre-Omicron era) and (2) February-September 2022 (Omicron era).
In the pre-Omicron era, our findings showed that an increase in public risk perception correlated with significant reductions in COVID-19 cases across various types of mobility within specific time frames. Specifically, we observed a decrease of 5.59 (95% CI -4.35 to -6.83) COVID-19 cases per million individuals after 7 weeks in nonessential mobility, while essential mobility demonstrated a reduction of 10.73 (95% CI -9.6030 to -11.8615) cases after 8 weeks. Additionally, job-related mobility resulted in a decrease of 3.96 (95% CI -3.5039 to -4.4254) cases after 11 weeks. However, during the Omicron era, these effects notably diminished. A reduction of 0.85 (95% CI -1.0046 to -0.6953) cases through nonessential mobility after 10 weeks and a decrease of 0.69 (95% CI -0.7827 to -0.6054) cases through essential mobility after 12 weeks were observed.
This study confirms that changes in mobility serve as a mediating factor between heightened risk perception and pandemic mitigation in both pre-Omicron and Omicron periods. This suggests that elevating risk perception is notably effective in impeding virus progression, especially when vaccines are unavailable or their coverage remains limited. Our findings provide significant value for health authorities in devising policies to address the global threats posed by emerging infectious diseases.
COVID-19 大流行已经对人类生活的方方面面产生了超过 3 年的深远影响。了解这些时期公众风险感知的演变至关重要。很少有研究探讨由于风险感知而减少疾病传播的机制。因此，我们假设人类流动性的变化在风险感知和大流行进展之间起着中介作用。
本研究旨在探讨各种形式的人类流动，包括基本、非基本和与工作相关的行为，如何在风险感知和大流行动态之间的时滞关系中发挥中介作用。
我们使用分布式滞后线性结构方程模型来比较不同病毒变异时期人类流动性的中介影响。这些模型考察了台湾地区风险感知、流动性变化和病毒传播之间的时间动态和时滞效应，重点关注两个不同时期：（1）2021 年 4 月至 8 月（Omicron 前时期）和（2）2022 年 2 月至 9 月（Omicron 时期）。
在 Omicron 前时期，我们的研究结果表明，公众风险感知的增加与特定时间范围内各种类型的流动性减少相关。具体来说，我们观察到非必要流动性每增加 100 万人，COVID-19 病例减少 5.59 例（95%置信区间-4.35 至-6.83），而基本流动性每增加 100 万人，COVID-19 病例减少 10.73 例（95%置信区间-9.6030 至-11.8615）。此外，工作相关流动性导致 11 周后 COVID-19 病例减少 3.96 例（95%置信区间-3.5039 至-4.4254）。然而，在 Omicron 时期，这些影响显著降低。观察到非必要流动性减少 0.85 例（95%置信区间-1.0046 至-0.6953），10 周后基本流动性减少 0.69 例（95%置信区间-0.7827 至-0.6054）。
本研究证实，在 Omicron 前和 Omicron 时期，流动性变化是风险感知与大流行缓解之间的中介因素。这表明，提高风险感知对于阻止病毒传播非常有效，特别是在疫苗不可用或其覆盖范围仍然有限的情况下。我们的研究结果为卫生当局制定应对新发传染病全球威胁的政策提供了重要价值。
