Brain and behavior in health communication: The Canadian COVID-19 Experiences Project

Do the vaccinated perform less distancing, mask wearing and hand hygiene? A test of the risk compensation hypothesis in a representative sample during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…The current study provides an empirical test of the risk compensation hypothesis in the early waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, using prospective data of a population representative sample of vaccinated and unvaccinated adults between the ages of 18 and 55 years [4] . This age range is ideal for testing the compensatory hypothesis, because the medical comorbidities prevalent over the age of 55 may independently motivate mitigation behaviors in vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals alike.…”

Cognitive predictors of COVID-19 mitigation behaviors in vaccinated and unvaccinated general population members

“…Participants were respondents in a baseline wave of the Canadian COVID-19 Experiences Survey (CCES; [20] , a national cohort survey of 2002 Canadian adults aged 18–55 (Mean = 37, SD = 10.4; 60.8 % female). The cohort was recruited from Leger Opinion, the largest nationally representative panel in Canada, from three age groups (18–24, 25–39, and 40–54) across six geographic regions (British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritimes: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador).…”

Social cognitive predictors of vaccination status, uptake and mitigation behaviors in the Canadian COVID-19 Experiences survey

“…Social cognitive variables included three measures of social norms (descriptive, injunctive, dynamic), intention strength, perceived severity and threat, as well as attitudes. Additional detail pertaining to each of these measures can be found in the protocol paper [25] and at the following link: https://uwaterloo.ca/prevention-neuroscience-lab/.…”

“…The use of quota sampling addresses this problem [24] , and allows for more straightforward exploration differences—or lack thereof—between vaccinated and unvaccinated subgroups, and also allows for maximally powered prediction of vaccination status itself from the focal predictors. The Canadian COVID-19 Experiences Project (CCEP) is comprised of two functionally interconnected studies, one of which is a Canadian national population cohort survey (Canadian COVID-19 Experiences Survey (CCES)), employing quota sampling to ensure equal numbers of vaccinated (50.2%) and unvaccinated (43.3% with no vaccines; 5.5% with one vaccine with no intention for follow-up vaccinations) individuals [25] . The CCES is weighted to ensure representativeness of the larger population from which it is drawn [26] , thereby ensuring that the coefficients and other parameter estimates can be inferred in relation to the Canadian population.…”