Impact of COVID-19 Awareness on Protective Behaviors during the Off-Peak Period: Sex Differences among Chinese Undergraduates

COVID-19 remains an extreme threat in higher education settings, even during the off-peak period. Appropriate protective measures have been suggested to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in a large population context. Undergraduate students represent a highly vulnerable fraction of the population, so their COVID-19 protective behaviors play critical roles in enabling successful pandemic prevention. Hence, this study aims to understand what and how individual factors contribute to undergraduate students’ protective behaviors. After building multigroup structural equation models using data acquired from the survey taken by 991 undergraduates at a large research university in eastern China, I found that students’ COVID-19 awareness was positively associated with their protective behaviors, such as wearing a mask, using hand sanitizer, and maintaining proper social distance, but not with getting vaccinated. In addition, I found students with higher COVID-19 awareness were more likely to have more COVID-19 knowledge than those with less awareness. Furthermore, sex differences were observed in the mediation effects of COVID-19 awareness on wearing a mask and getting vaccinated, via COVID-19 knowledge, respectively. The results of this study have implications in helping higher education stakeholders enact effective measures to prevent the spread of the pandemic.