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Testing for COVID-19: willful ignorance or selfless behavior?
Widespread testing is key to controlling the spread of COVID-19. But should we worry about self-selection bias in the testing? The recent literature on willful ignorance says we should – people often avoid health information. In the context of COVID-19, such willful ignorance can bias testing data....
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Cambridge University Press
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7256418/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/bpp.2020.15 |
_version_ | 1783539904338198528 |
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author | THUNSTRÖM, LINDA ASHWORTH, MADISON SHOGREN, JASON F. NEWBOLD, STEPHEN FINNOFF, DAVID |
author_facet | THUNSTRÖM, LINDA ASHWORTH, MADISON SHOGREN, JASON F. NEWBOLD, STEPHEN FINNOFF, DAVID |
author_sort | THUNSTRÖM, LINDA |
collection | PubMed |
description | Widespread testing is key to controlling the spread of COVID-19. But should we worry about self-selection bias in the testing? The recent literature on willful ignorance says we should – people often avoid health information. In the context of COVID-19, such willful ignorance can bias testing data. Furthermore, willful ignorance often arises when selfish wants conflict with social benefits, which might be particularly likely for potential ‘super-spreaders’ – people with many social interactions – given people who test positive are urged to self-isolate for two weeks. We design a survey in which participants (n = 897) choose whether to take a costless COVID-19 test. We find that 70% would take a test. Surprisingly, the people most likely to widely spread COVID-19 – the extraverts, others who meet more people in their daily lives and younger people – are the most willing to take a test. People's ability to financially or emotionally sustain self-isolation does not matter to their decision. We conclude that people are selfless in their decision to test for COVID-19. Our results are encouraging – they imply that COVOD-19 testing may succeed in targeting those who generate the largest social benefits from self-isolation if infected, which strengthens the case for widespread testing. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7256418 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Cambridge University Press |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-72564182020-05-29 Testing for COVID-19: willful ignorance or selfless behavior? THUNSTRÖM, LINDA ASHWORTH, MADISON SHOGREN, JASON F. NEWBOLD, STEPHEN FINNOFF, DAVID Behav Public Policy Article Widespread testing is key to controlling the spread of COVID-19. But should we worry about self-selection bias in the testing? The recent literature on willful ignorance says we should – people often avoid health information. In the context of COVID-19, such willful ignorance can bias testing data. Furthermore, willful ignorance often arises when selfish wants conflict with social benefits, which might be particularly likely for potential ‘super-spreaders’ – people with many social interactions – given people who test positive are urged to self-isolate for two weeks. We design a survey in which participants (n = 897) choose whether to take a costless COVID-19 test. We find that 70% would take a test. Surprisingly, the people most likely to widely spread COVID-19 – the extraverts, others who meet more people in their daily lives and younger people – are the most willing to take a test. People's ability to financially or emotionally sustain self-isolation does not matter to their decision. We conclude that people are selfless in their decision to test for COVID-19. Our results are encouraging – they imply that COVOD-19 testing may succeed in targeting those who generate the largest social benefits from self-isolation if infected, which strengthens the case for widespread testing. Cambridge University Press 2020-05-08 /pmc/articles/PMC7256418/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/bpp.2020.15 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Article THUNSTRÖM, LINDA ASHWORTH, MADISON SHOGREN, JASON F. NEWBOLD, STEPHEN FINNOFF, DAVID Testing for COVID-19: willful ignorance or selfless behavior? |
title | Testing for COVID-19: willful ignorance or selfless behavior? |
title_full | Testing for COVID-19: willful ignorance or selfless behavior? |
title_fullStr | Testing for COVID-19: willful ignorance or selfless behavior? |
title_full_unstemmed | Testing for COVID-19: willful ignorance or selfless behavior? |
title_short | Testing for COVID-19: willful ignorance or selfless behavior? |
title_sort | testing for covid-19: willful ignorance or selfless behavior? |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7256418/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/bpp.2020.15 |
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