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Behavioural response to the Covid-19 pandemic in South Africa

BACKGROUND: Given the economic and social divide that exists in South Africa, it is critical to manage the health response of its residents to the Covid-19 pandemic within the different socio-economic contexts that define the lived realities of individuals. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study is...

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Autores principales: Kollamparambil, Umakrishnan, Oyenubi, Adeola
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8051761/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33861811
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250269
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author Kollamparambil, Umakrishnan
Oyenubi, Adeola
author_facet Kollamparambil, Umakrishnan
Oyenubi, Adeola
author_sort Kollamparambil, Umakrishnan
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Given the economic and social divide that exists in South Africa, it is critical to manage the health response of its residents to the Covid-19 pandemic within the different socio-economic contexts that define the lived realities of individuals. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study is to analyse the Covid-19 preventive behaviour and the socio-economic drivers behind the health-response behaviour. DATA: The study employs data from waves 1 and 2 of South Africa’s nationally representative National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS)—Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (CRAM). The nationally representative panel data has a sample of 7073 individuals in Wave 1 and 5676 individuals in Wave 2. METHODS: The study uses bivariate statistics, concentration indices and multivariate estimation techniques, ranging from a probit, control-function approach, special-regressor method and seemingly unrelated regression to account for endogeneity while identifying the drivers of the response behaviour. FINDINGS: The findings indicate enhanced behavioural responsiveness to Covid-19. Preventive behaviour is evolving over time; the use of face mask has overtaken handwashing as the most utilised preventive measure. Other measures, like social distancing, avoiding close contact, avoiding big groups and staying at home, have declined between the two periods of the study. There is increased risk perception with significant concentration among the higher income groups, the educated and older respondents. Our findings validate the health-belief model, with perceived risk, self-efficacy, perceived awareness and barriers to preventive strategy adoption identified as significant drivers of health-response behaviour. Measures such as social distancing, avoiding close contact, and the use of sanitisers are practised more by the rich and educated, but not by the low-income respondents. CONCLUSION: The respondents from lower socio-economic backgrounds are associated with optimism bias and face barriers to the adoption of preventive strategies. This requires targeted policy attention in order to make response behaviour effective.
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spelling pubmed-80517612021-04-28 Behavioural response to the Covid-19 pandemic in South Africa Kollamparambil, Umakrishnan Oyenubi, Adeola PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: Given the economic and social divide that exists in South Africa, it is critical to manage the health response of its residents to the Covid-19 pandemic within the different socio-economic contexts that define the lived realities of individuals. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study is to analyse the Covid-19 preventive behaviour and the socio-economic drivers behind the health-response behaviour. DATA: The study employs data from waves 1 and 2 of South Africa’s nationally representative National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS)—Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (CRAM). The nationally representative panel data has a sample of 7073 individuals in Wave 1 and 5676 individuals in Wave 2. METHODS: The study uses bivariate statistics, concentration indices and multivariate estimation techniques, ranging from a probit, control-function approach, special-regressor method and seemingly unrelated regression to account for endogeneity while identifying the drivers of the response behaviour. FINDINGS: The findings indicate enhanced behavioural responsiveness to Covid-19. Preventive behaviour is evolving over time; the use of face mask has overtaken handwashing as the most utilised preventive measure. Other measures, like social distancing, avoiding close contact, avoiding big groups and staying at home, have declined between the two periods of the study. There is increased risk perception with significant concentration among the higher income groups, the educated and older respondents. Our findings validate the health-belief model, with perceived risk, self-efficacy, perceived awareness and barriers to preventive strategy adoption identified as significant drivers of health-response behaviour. Measures such as social distancing, avoiding close contact, and the use of sanitisers are practised more by the rich and educated, but not by the low-income respondents. CONCLUSION: The respondents from lower socio-economic backgrounds are associated with optimism bias and face barriers to the adoption of preventive strategies. This requires targeted policy attention in order to make response behaviour effective. Public Library of Science 2021-04-16 /pmc/articles/PMC8051761/ /pubmed/33861811 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250269 Text en © 2021 Kollamparambil, Oyenubi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://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
Kollamparambil, Umakrishnan
Oyenubi, Adeola
Behavioural response to the Covid-19 pandemic in South Africa
title Behavioural response to the Covid-19 pandemic in South Africa
title_full Behavioural response to the Covid-19 pandemic in South Africa
title_fullStr Behavioural response to the Covid-19 pandemic in South Africa
title_full_unstemmed Behavioural response to the Covid-19 pandemic in South Africa
title_short Behavioural response to the Covid-19 pandemic in South Africa
title_sort behavioural response to the covid-19 pandemic in south africa
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8051761/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33861811
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250269
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