ArticlePloS one2021
Who is to blame for COVID-19? Examining politicized fear and health behavior through a mixed methods study in the United States.
Article in PloS one, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 43 citations in OpenAlex.
- Engagement with a Chatbot-based Intervention for the delivery of mailed at-home COVID-19 Testing: a Descriptive Log Analysis Study from the SCALE-UP II Trial.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Political Beliefs and Legitimacy of Government Restrictions During the COVID-19 Pandemic.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Internet health information-seeking behavior and the use of traditional and complementary medicine: the role of online engagement and perceived information usefulness and reliability.BMC complementary medicine and therapies · 2025Article
- "I just can't go back": Challenging Places for Older Americans since the COVID-19 Pandemic Onset.SSM. Qualitative research in health · 2024Article
- Implicit and explicit COVID-19 associations and mental health in the United States: a large-scale examination and replication.Anxiety, stress, and coping · 2023Article
- Challenges and opportunities for improved contact tracing in Ghana: experiences from Coronavirus disease-2019-related contact tracing in the Bono region.BMC infectious diseases · 2023Article
- Understanding and addressing populations whose prior experience has led to mistrust in healthcare.Israel journal of health policy research · 2023Article
- Impact of COVID-19 on the national development of countries: Implications for the public health.PloS one · 2023Article
- Emerging Health Disparities during the COVID-19 Pandemic.Avicenna journal of medicine · 2023Article
- Communicating science in the COVID-19 news in the UK during Omicron waves: exploring representations of nature of science with epistemic network analysis.Humanities & social sciences communications · 2023Article
- Relationship between attitudes toward COVID-19 infection, depression and anxiety: a cross-sectional survey in Japan.BMC psychiatry · 2022Article
- COVID-19 Related Shifts in Social Interaction, Connection, and Cohesion Impact Psychosocial Health: Longitudinal Qualitative Findings from COVID-19 Treatment Trial Engaged Participants.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Multi-dimensional impacts of Coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic on Sustainable Development Goal achievement.Globalization and health · 2022Article
- The Associations Between Racially/Ethnically Stratified COVID-19 Tweets and COVID-19 Cases and Deaths: Cross-sectional Study.JMIR formative research · 2022Article
- COVID-19, economic threat and identity status: Stability and change in prejudice against Chinese people within the Canadian population.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Pandemic responses at the subnational level: Exploring politics, administration, and politicization in Swedish municipalities.European policy analysis · 2022Article
- Accuracy of COVID-19 relevant knowledge among youth: Number of information sources matters.PloS one · 2022Article
- How Do People Cope During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Stay Well? A Salutogenic Longitudinal Study in Israel.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundPolitical ideologies drove public actions and health behaviors in the first year of the global pandemic. Different ideas about contagion, health behaviors, and the actions of governing bodies impacted the spread of the virus and health and life. Researchers used an immediate, mixed methods design to explore sociocultural responses to the virus and identified differences and similarities in anxiety, fear, blame, and perceptions of nation across political divides.
methodsResearchers conducted 60 in-depth, semi-structured interviews and administered over 1,000 questionnaires with people living in the United States. The team analyzed data through an exploratory and confirmatory sequential mixed methods design.
resultsIn the first months of the pandemic interviewees cited economic inequality, untrustworthy corporations and other entities, and the federal government as threats to life and pandemic control. Participants invoked ideas about others to determine blame. Findings reveal heavy associations between lack of safety during a public health crisis and blame of "culture" and government power across the political spectrum.
conclusionData indicate anxiety across political differences related to ideas of contagion and the maleficence of a powerful elite. Findings on how people understand the nation, politics, and pandemic management contribute to understanding dimensions of health behaviors and underlying connections between anxiety and the uptake of conspiracy theories in public health. The article ends with recommendations drawn from project findings for future pandemic response.
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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.