Exploring the COVID-19 Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices (KAPs) in the Black Community: a Scoping Review

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND: Racial minorities have been the focal point of media coverage, attributing the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 to their individual actions; however, the ability to engage in preventative practices can also depend on one’s social determinants of health. Individual actions can include knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAPs). Since Black communities are among those disproportionately affected by COVID-19, this scoping review explores what is known about COVID-19 KAPs among Black populations. METHODS: A comprehensive literature search was conducted in 2020 for articles written in English from the Medline, Embase, and PsycInfo databases. Reviews, experimental research, and observational studies were included if they investigated at least one of COVID-19 KAP in relation to the pandemic and Black communities in OECD peer countries including Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS: Thirty-one articles were included for analysis, and all employed observational designs were from the United States. The following KAPs were examined: 6 (18.8%) knowledge, 21 (65.6%) attitudes, and 22 (68.8%) practices. Black communities demonstrated high levels of adherence to preventative measures (e.g., lockdowns) and practices (e.g., mask wearing), despite a strong proportion of participants believing they were less likely to become infected with the virus, and having lower levels of COVID-19 knowledge, than other racial groups. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: The findings from this review support that Black communities highly engage in COVID-19 preventative practices within their realm of control such as mask-wearing and hand washing and suggest that low knowledge does not predict low practice scores among this population.