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Face mask use during the COVID-19 pandemic—the significance of culture and the symbolic meaning of behavior

During public emergencies, a door can open on the fundamental elements upon which a society's social order is built. The Covid-19 pandemic has opened such a door in societies worldwide. We outline in this commentary some of these social elements and how they may have influenced face mask use du...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Timpka, Toomas, Nyce, James M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier Inc. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9761653/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33836290
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.annepidem.2021.03.012
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author Timpka, Toomas
Nyce, James M.
author_facet Timpka, Toomas
Nyce, James M.
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description During public emergencies, a door can open on the fundamental elements upon which a society's social order is built. The Covid-19 pandemic has opened such a door in societies worldwide. We outline in this commentary some of these social elements and how they may have influenced face mask use during the early stages of the pandemic. The purpose is to expand the perspective on mechanisms that are relevant to consider in pandemic response planning. Our look at these fundamental elements showed that latent aspects of the dominant culture and various symbolic meanings of behaviors can reduce adherence with public health recommendations if they are overlooked in the strategic health plans. We conclude that when policymakers decide non-pharmacological interventions during pandemics, they should take into account fundamental attitudes and beliefs that may influence population behavior. This will require paying attention to variations in things like culture and symbolic meanings of behavior.
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spelling pubmed-97616532022-12-19 Face mask use during the COVID-19 pandemic—the significance of culture and the symbolic meaning of behavior Timpka, Toomas Nyce, James M. Ann Epidemiol Commentary During public emergencies, a door can open on the fundamental elements upon which a society's social order is built. The Covid-19 pandemic has opened such a door in societies worldwide. We outline in this commentary some of these social elements and how they may have influenced face mask use during the early stages of the pandemic. The purpose is to expand the perspective on mechanisms that are relevant to consider in pandemic response planning. Our look at these fundamental elements showed that latent aspects of the dominant culture and various symbolic meanings of behaviors can reduce adherence with public health recommendations if they are overlooked in the strategic health plans. We conclude that when policymakers decide non-pharmacological interventions during pandemics, they should take into account fundamental attitudes and beliefs that may influence population behavior. This will require paying attention to variations in things like culture and symbolic meanings of behavior. Elsevier Inc. 2021-07 2021-04-06 /pmc/articles/PMC9761653/ /pubmed/33836290 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.annepidem.2021.03.012 Text en © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle Commentary
Timpka, Toomas
Nyce, James M.
Face mask use during the COVID-19 pandemic—the significance of culture and the symbolic meaning of behavior
title Face mask use during the COVID-19 pandemic—the significance of culture and the symbolic meaning of behavior
title_full Face mask use during the COVID-19 pandemic—the significance of culture and the symbolic meaning of behavior
title_fullStr Face mask use during the COVID-19 pandemic—the significance of culture and the symbolic meaning of behavior
title_full_unstemmed Face mask use during the COVID-19 pandemic—the significance of culture and the symbolic meaning of behavior
title_short Face mask use during the COVID-19 pandemic—the significance of culture and the symbolic meaning of behavior
title_sort face mask use during the covid-19 pandemic—the significance of culture and the symbolic meaning of behavior
topic Commentary
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9761653/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33836290
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.annepidem.2021.03.012
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