This study examines the relationships between government interventions, risk perception, and the public's adoption of protective action recommendations (PARs) during the COVID-19 coronavirus disease emergency in mainland China. We conducted quota sampling based on the proportion of the population in each province and gender ratios in the Sixth Census and obtained a sample size of 3837. Government intervention was divided into government communication, government prevention and control, and government rescue. We used multiple regression and a bootstrap mediation effect test to study the mechanism of these three forms of government intervention on the public's adoption of PARs. The results show that government prevention and control and government rescue significantly increased the likelihood of the public adopting PARs. Risk perception was significantly associated with the public's adoption of PARs. The effects of government interventions and risk perception on the public's adoption of PARs was not found to vary by region. Risk perception is identified as an important mediating factor between government intervention and the public's adoption of PARs. These results indicate that increasing the public's risk perception is an effective strategy for governments seeking to encourage the public to adopt PARs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Utilizing data from the China Education Panel Survey, we investigated the effects of parental migration and its duration on children’s mental health in rural China. We obtained a sample of 3830 rural children, comprising 2769 children who lived with both parents, 512 children whose one parent had migrated, and 549 children whose both parents had migrated. The results of multiple regression and propensity score matching showed that absence of both parents was negatively correlated to children’s mental health, with the migration of one parent having little effect. The negative effects related to parental labor migration became more apparent when we considered the duration of parents’ migration. Compared with children whose parents were not absent, children who had been left behind for less than one year and those who had been left behind for more than one year both displayed poorer mental health. These findings urge us to infer that family arrangements have an important influence on children’s psychological health. The findings also showed girls’ mental health more likely to be affected than that of boys, which implied a gender difference in the impacts of parental migration. Research and policy implications are discussed.

Many scholars have considered the relationship between the government response to COVID-19, an important social intervention strategy, and the COVID-19 infection rate. However, few have examined the sustained impact of an early government response on the COVID-19 infection rate. The current paper fills this gap by investigating a national survey performed in February 2020 and infection data from Chinese cities surveyed 1.5 years after the outbreak of COVID-19. The results suggest that the Chinese government’s early response to COVID-19 significantly and sustainedly reduced China’s COVID-19 infection rate, and that this impact worked through risk perception, the adoption of protective action recommendations (PARs), and the chain-mediating effects of risk perception and the adoption of PARs, respectively. These findings have important practical value. In demonstrating how government response and infection rate at the macro level are connected to the behaviour of individuals at the micro level, they suggest feasible directions for curbing the spread of diseases such as COVID-19. When facing such public health emergencies, the focus should be on increasing the public’s risk perception and adoption of PARs.

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