McColl Kathleen, Mueller Judith, Martin-Lapoirie Dylan, Verger Pierre, Heyerdahl Léonardo W, Ventelou Bruno, Botelho-Nevers Elisabeth, Raude Jocelyn
French School of Public Health, École des Hautes Études en Santé Publique (EHESP), University of Rennes, Rennes, France.
UMR ARENES - Équipe de Recherche sur les Services et le Management en Santé, Université de Rennes, EHESP, CNRS 6051, INSERM 1309, Rennes, France.
Sci Rep. 2025 Aug 20;15(1):30556. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-14644-2.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, there is growing evidence that the social epidemiological context may play a crucial role in the adoption of health protective behaviours in response to emerging infectious diseases. Yet, our understanding of how and why these behaviours are influenced by the epidemiological forces remains relatively limited. This repeated, cross-sectional investigation examines the extent to which the association between the socio-epidemiological context and protective behaviour was mediated by a series of common social cognitive factors from leading models of health behaviour during the COVID-19 epidemic in France. Representative samples of the French population completed an online, self-report survey at seventeen intervals (March-November 2020), with approximately 2000 participants in each survey wave. Results indicate that both contextual and social cognitive variables largely drove the adoption of protective behaviours over time. However, social cognitive variables only partially mediated the effect of the epidemiological context on protective behaviour (physical distancing and hygiene measures), suggesting that unknown factors may be operating in addition to those commonly used in these models. These findings highlight the need for future research to consider the epidemiological context, and further possible mediating variables, when modelling determinants of social cognitions and preventive behaviour, and above all, to broaden its focus to include neglected underlying psychological mechanisms involved in the behavioural response to epidemics.
自新冠疫情以来，越来越多的证据表明，社会流行病学背景可能在应对新出现的传染病时采取健康保护行为方面发挥关键作用。然而，我们对这些行为如何以及为何受到流行病学因素影响的理解仍然相对有限。这项重复性横断面调查研究了在法国新冠疫情期间，社会流行病学背景与保护行为之间的关联在多大程度上是由一系列来自健康行为主导模型的常见社会认知因素所介导的。法国人口的代表性样本在17个时间点（2020年3月至11月）完成了一项在线自我报告调查，每个调查波次约有2000名参与者。结果表明，随着时间的推移，背景变量和社会认知变量在很大程度上推动了保护行为的采用。然而，社会认知变量仅部分介导了流行病学背景对保护行为（身体距离和卫生措施）的影响，这表明除了这些模型中常用的因素外，可能还有其他未知因素在起作用。这些发现凸显了未来研究在对社会认知和预防行为的决定因素进行建模时，需要考虑流行病学背景以及进一步可能的中介变量，最重要的是，要拓宽其关注点，纳入在对疫情的行为反应中被忽视的潜在心理机制。
