Trial reportPloS one2021
Social distancing in America: Understanding long-term adherence to COVID-19 mitigation recommendations.
Trial report in PloS one, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 31 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
31 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Behavioural Sciences Contribution to Suppressing Transmission of Covid-19 in the UK: A Systematic Literature Review.International journal of behavioral medicine · 2024Pooled it
- The impacts of COVID-19 on eating disorders and disordered eating: A mixed studies systematic review and implications.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Pooled it
- Article
- The People versus Behavioral Science: Alignment between lay and scientific understanding of compliance.PloS one · 2026Article
- Understanding the dynamics and interplay of public support and adherence to five key mitigation behaviors over the course of the evolving COVID-19 pandemic.SSM - population health · 2025Article
- Unchartered Territory: Understanding Public Compliance During the Covid-19 Pandemic and the Effectiveness of UK Government Communications.Europe's journal of psychology · 2025Article
- Exploring infectious disease spread as a function of seasonal and pandemic-induced changes in human mobility.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Analyzing evolutionary game theory in epidemic management: A study on social distancing and mask-wearing strategies.PloS one · 2024Article
- Media exposure, threat processing, and mitigation behaviors in Gulf Coast residents facing the co-occurring threats of COVID-19 and hurricanes.Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis · 2023Article
- Validity and Reliability of Rule Orientation Scale among Romanian Physicians-A Pilot Study.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2023Article
- COVID-19 vaccination and changes in preventive behaviours: findings from the 2021 vaccine roll-out in Switzerland.European journal of public health · 2023Article
- A longitudinal study of COVID-19 preventive behavior fatigue in Hong Kong: a city with previous pandemic experience.BMC public health · 2023Article
- Does pre-COVID impulsive behaviour predict adherence to hygiene and social distancing measures in youths following the COVID-19 pandemic onset? Evidence from a South African longitudinal study.BMC public health · 2023Article
- A Network Approach to Compliance: A Complexity Science Understanding of How Rules Shape Behavior.Journal of business ethics : JBE · 2023Article
- Article
- The next 'pandemic playbook' needs to prioritize the needs of children-and a clear roadmap for opening schools.Antimicrobial stewardship & healthcare epidemiology : ASHE · 2023Article
- Embracing dynamic public health policy impacts in infectious diseases responses: leveraging implementation science to improve practice.Frontiers in public health · 2023Review
- Exploring primary healthcare practitioners' experiences regarding the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.Primary health care research & development · 2022Article
- Preventive behaviours during the pandemic: The role of collective rituals, emotional synchrony, social norms and moral obligation.The British journal of social psychology · 2022Article
- Adherence to COVID-19 Guidelines among Current, Former, and Never Smokers.American journal of health behavior · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
A crucial question in the governance of infectious disease outbreaks is how to ensure that people continue to adhere to mitigation measures for the longer duration. The present paper examines this question by means of a set of cross-sectional studies conducted in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic, in May, June, and July of 2020. Using stratified samples that mimic the demographic characteristics of the U.S. population, it seeks to understand to what extent Americans continued to adhere to social distancing measures in the period after the first lockdown ended. Moreover, it seeks to uncover which variables sustained (or undermined) adherence across this period. For this purpose, we examined a broad range of factors, relating to people's (1) knowledge and understanding of the mitigation measures, (2) perceptions of their costs and benefits, (3) perceptions of legitimacy and procedural justice, (4) personal factors, (5) social environment, and (6) practical circumstances. Our findings reveal that adherence was chiefly shaped by three major factors: respondents adhered more when they (a) had greater practical capacity to adhere, (b) morally agreed more with the measures, and (c) perceived the virus as a more severe health threat. Adherence was shaped to a lesser extent by impulsivity, knowledge of social distancing measures, opportunities for violating, personal costs, and descriptive social norms. The results also reveal, however, that adherence declined across this period, which was partly explained by changes in people's moral alignment, threat perceptions, knowledge, and perceived social norms. These findings show that adherence originates from a broad range of factors that develop dynamically across time. Practically these insights help to improve pandemic governance, as well as contributing theoretically to the study of compliance and the way that rules come to shape behavior.
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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.