ArticleSocial science & medicine (1982)2021
Mental associations with COVID-19 and how they relate with self-reported protective behaviors: A national survey in the United States.
Article in Social science & medicine (1982), 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 14 citations in OpenAlex.
- Comparing the Antimicrobial Resistance Crisis to the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Randomized Public Health Messaging Experiment.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2026Trial
- Restricted health service utilization and subsequent positive self-care behavior during the early COVID-19 pandemic in China.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Article
- Differences in comprehending and acting on pandemic health risk information: a qualitative study using mental models.BMC public health · 2022Article
- Mental Models of Illness during the Early Months of the COVID-19 Pandemic.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Dual-Path Effect of Mortality Salience Induced by COVID-19 on Food Safety Behavior in China.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- I Think, Therefore I Act: The Influence of Critical Reasoning Ability on Trust and Behavior During the COVID-19 Pandemic.Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis · 2022Article
- Influenza season 2020-2021 did not begin in Finland despite the looser social restrictions during the second wave of COVID-19: A nationwide register study.Journal of medical virology · 2021Article
- The Roles of General Health and COVID-19 Proximity in Contact Tracing App Usage: Cross-sectional Survey Study.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2021Article
- A comparison between online social media discussions and vaccination rates: A tale of four vaccines.Digital healthReview
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
rationaleTo understand novel diseases, patients may draw comparisons to other diseases.
objectiveWe examined whether mentally associating specific diseases with COVID-19 was related to self-reported protective behaviors early in the pandemic.
methodsIn March 2020, a national sample of 6534 U.S. adults listed diseases that came to mind when thinking of COVID-19. They self-reported protective behaviors, demographics, and COVID-19 risk perceptions.
resultsParticipants associated COVID-19 with common infectious diseases like seasonal influenza (59%), common cold (11%), and pneumonia (10%), or emergent infectious diseases like pandemic influenza (28%), SARS/MERS (27%), and Ebola (14%). Seasonal influenza was most commonly mentioned, in all demographic groups. Participants mentioning seasonal influenza or common cold reported fewer protective behaviors. Those mentioning pneumonia or emergent infectious diseases reported more protective behaviors. Mentioning pneumonia, SARS/MERS, and Ebola was associated with the most protective behaviors, after accounting for other generated diseases, demographics, and risk perceptions (e.g., for avoiding crowds, OR = 1.52, 95% CI = 1.26, 1.83; OR = 1.28, 95% CI = 1.13, 1.46; OR = 1.30, 95% CI = 1.11, 1.52, respectively).
conclusionsEarly in the pandemic, most participants mentally associated COVID-19 with seasonal flu, which may have undermined willingness to protect themselves. To motivate behavior change, COVID-19 risk communications may need to mention diseases that resonate with people while retaining accuracy.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.