Gender differences in preventing the spread of coronavirus

Abstract

Social distancing and hygiene practices are key to preventing the spread of Coronavirus.However, people vary in the degree to which they follow these practices. Consistent with previous findings that women adhere more to preventative health practices, in Study 1, women reported engaging in more preventative practices regarding COVID-19 (e.g., social distancing, hygiene) than men. In Study 2, across three different Northeast U.S. locations, we observed a greater percentage of women wearing masks in public than men. In Study 3, U.S. counties with a greater percentage of women exhibited greater social distancing as tracked by the geo-location of ~15 million GPS smart-phones per day. These findings suggest that preventive health messages should be tuned especially towards men.

Men’s attitudes toward mask-wearing during COVID-19: Understanding the complexities of mask-ulinity

“…We agree with the conclusion reached by Okten et al (2020) that policymakers should focus on disseminating public health messages aimed at motivating men’s adherence to prevention efforts, and view our findings as providing several specific applications for engaging men in individual and public health-promotive behaviors amidst the COVID-19 crisis. First, we recommend that efforts be made to intervene with men to increase their perception of the benefits of mask-wearing, particularly men who conform to traditional masculine norms and are politically conservative.…”

“…Men, in particular, seem to be less willing to wear masks, with research reporting they do not intend to wear masks as much as women (Capraro and Barcelo, 2020). This is consistent with research that women report greater social distancing, handwashing, and mask-wearing (Okten et al, 2020), along with previous findings on gender differences in adopting recommended practices during past pandemics (Condon and Sinha, 2010; Lau et al, 2010). One explanation offered by recent research supports the role played by traditional masculine norms in not wearing masks, reporting that men are more likely to feel stigma from wearing a mask because doing so is viewed as a sign of weakness (Capraro and Barcelo, 2020).…”

“…As such, we did not examine women’s health practices which also vary and are important to address to contain the virus. Our choice to examine men in this study was in response to evidence that men are less compliant with recommended practices in this pandemic as well as past pandemics (Capraro and Barcelo, 2020; Condon and Sinha, 2010; Lau et al, 2010; Okten et al, 2020), and prevalence of the public narrative in the United States conveying gendered messages about public health behaviors, such as that wearing a face covering is perceived as a sign of weakness and unmasculine (Capraro and Barcelo, 2020; Glick, 2020). Future research should examine factors that affect adoption of CDC recommended health practices across genders.…”

Rapid genome surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 and study of risk factors using shipping container laboratories and portable DNA sequencing technology

“…However, the overall proportion of SARS-CoV-2 infected cases is higher in males than females, which may suggest the SARS-CoV-2 virus has sex-specific differences in infectivity. The slightly higher positive cases in females could partially be because they are more likely to follow the guidelines during the pandemic and, therefore, more likely to participate in regular screening tests 40 . The mortality rate was 1.5-fold higher in males, suggesting male sex is a risk factor associated with SARS-CoV-2 mortality.…”

Dynamics of Mask Use as a Prevention Strategy against SARS-CoV-2 in Panama

“…In general, women are more proactive in employing preventative health practices [ 33 ], as observed in preventive behavior against coronavirus infection [ 34 ]. This observation is supported by our data, where a high proportion of women wore masks than men.…”