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Coronavirus risk perception and compliance with social distancing measures in a sample of young adults: Evidence from Switzerland

The health risk of the coronavirus pandemic is age-specific. The symptoms of a COVID-19 infection are usually mild in the healthy population below the age of 65; however, the measures laid down to prevent the spread of the virus apply typically to the whole population. Hence, those who have a low ri...

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Autores principales: Franzen, Axel, Wöhner, Fabienne
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7894933/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33606826
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247447
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author Franzen, Axel
Wöhner, Fabienne
author_facet Franzen, Axel
Wöhner, Fabienne
author_sort Franzen, Axel
collection PubMed
description The health risk of the coronavirus pandemic is age-specific. The symptoms of a COVID-19 infection are usually mild in the healthy population below the age of 65; however, the measures laid down to prevent the spread of the virus apply typically to the whole population. Hence, those who have a low risk of severe symptoms face a social dilemma in cooperating and complying with the safety measures: Cooperating in preventing the spread of the disease is good for society but comes with individual costs. These costs provide an incentive not to cooperate with the safety measures. In this paper we analyze via structural equation modelling a sample of young adults (N = 510) who were surveyed right after the end of the first lockdown period in Switzerland. We investigate why and to what extent they cooperated in preventing the epidemic by following the recommendation to stay at home as much as possible. We hypothesize that those respondents who perceive themselves to be personally at risk, or who have relatives belonging to the risk group, complied more often with the safety measures as compared to those without severe risks. Cooperating should also be linked to individuals’ pro-social orientation. Furthermore, we hypothesize that those who believe that the virus is dangerous for society or who have a personal interest in protection show higher support for the general safety measures. Our empirical results show that compliance with the coronavirus social distancing measures was generally very high during the first lockdown. Although young adults perceived themselves to be at low personal risk, they still believed that the virus is dangerous for society. Those who had a personal interest in staying at home because they had relatives belonging to the risk group complied more often with the safety measures. Overall, the results suggest that the support of the preventive measures is the most important promoter of cooperation to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
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spelling pubmed-78949332021-03-01 Coronavirus risk perception and compliance with social distancing measures in a sample of young adults: Evidence from Switzerland Franzen, Axel Wöhner, Fabienne PLoS One Research Article The health risk of the coronavirus pandemic is age-specific. The symptoms of a COVID-19 infection are usually mild in the healthy population below the age of 65; however, the measures laid down to prevent the spread of the virus apply typically to the whole population. Hence, those who have a low risk of severe symptoms face a social dilemma in cooperating and complying with the safety measures: Cooperating in preventing the spread of the disease is good for society but comes with individual costs. These costs provide an incentive not to cooperate with the safety measures. In this paper we analyze via structural equation modelling a sample of young adults (N = 510) who were surveyed right after the end of the first lockdown period in Switzerland. We investigate why and to what extent they cooperated in preventing the epidemic by following the recommendation to stay at home as much as possible. We hypothesize that those respondents who perceive themselves to be personally at risk, or who have relatives belonging to the risk group, complied more often with the safety measures as compared to those without severe risks. Cooperating should also be linked to individuals’ pro-social orientation. Furthermore, we hypothesize that those who believe that the virus is dangerous for society or who have a personal interest in protection show higher support for the general safety measures. Our empirical results show that compliance with the coronavirus social distancing measures was generally very high during the first lockdown. Although young adults perceived themselves to be at low personal risk, they still believed that the virus is dangerous for society. Those who had a personal interest in staying at home because they had relatives belonging to the risk group complied more often with the safety measures. Overall, the results suggest that the support of the preventive measures is the most important promoter of cooperation to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Public Library of Science 2021-02-19 /pmc/articles/PMC7894933/ /pubmed/33606826 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247447 Text en © 2021 Franzen, Wöhner http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Franzen, Axel
Wöhner, Fabienne
Coronavirus risk perception and compliance with social distancing measures in a sample of young adults: Evidence from Switzerland
title Coronavirus risk perception and compliance with social distancing measures in a sample of young adults: Evidence from Switzerland
title_full Coronavirus risk perception and compliance with social distancing measures in a sample of young adults: Evidence from Switzerland
title_fullStr Coronavirus risk perception and compliance with social distancing measures in a sample of young adults: Evidence from Switzerland
title_full_unstemmed Coronavirus risk perception and compliance with social distancing measures in a sample of young adults: Evidence from Switzerland
title_short Coronavirus risk perception and compliance with social distancing measures in a sample of young adults: Evidence from Switzerland
title_sort coronavirus risk perception and compliance with social distancing measures in a sample of young adults: evidence from switzerland
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7894933/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33606826
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247447
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