Perceptions and behavioural responses of the general public during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional survey of UK Adults

Abstract

Objective: To examine risk perceptions and behavioural responses of the UK adult population during the early phase of the COVID-19 epidemic in the UK. Design: A cross-sectional surveySetting: Conducted with a nationally representative sample of UK adults within 48 hours of the UK Government advising the public to stop non-essential contact with others and all unnecessary travel.Participants: 2,108 adults living in the UK aged 18 years and over. Data were collected between March 17 and 18 2020. Main outcome measures:Descriptive statistics for all survey questions, including the number of respondents and the weighted percentages. Logistic regression was used to identify sociodemographic variation in: (1) adoption of social-distancing measures, (2) ability to work from home, and (3) willingness and (4) ability to self-isolate. ResultsOverall, 1,992 (94.2%) respondents reported taking at least one preventive measure:85.8% washed their hands with soap more frequently; 56.5% avoided crowded areas and 54.5% avoided social events. Adoption of social-distancing measures was higher in those aged over 70 compared to younger adults aged 18 to 34 years (aOR:1.9; 95% CI:1.1 to 3.4).Those with the lowest household income were six times less likely to be able to work from home (aOR:0.16; 95% CI:0.09 to 0.26) and three times less likely to be able to self-isolate (aOR:0.31; 95% CI:0.16 to 0.58). Ability to self-isolate was also lower in black and minority ethnic groups (aOR:0.47; 95% CI:0.27 to 0.82). Willingness to self-isolate was high across all respondents. ConclusionsThe ability to adopt and comply with certain NPIs is lower in the most economically disadvantaged in society. Governments must implement appropriate social and economic policies to mitigate this. By incorporating these differences in NPIs among socio-economic subpopulations into mathematical models of COVID-19 transmission dynamics, our modelling of epidemic outcomes and response to COVID-19 can be improved.

Factors impacting social distancing measures for preventing coronavirus disease 2019 [COVID-19]: A systematic review

“…The search results are summarised in Figure 1. In total, 1235 citations were identi ed, of which 16 were found to be relevant [39,40,[41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54] excluded 68 studies.…”

“…Similarly, other studies further added that if the basic reproduction number of COVID-19 in Hong Kong, UK and US exceeds 2, (it was 2•2 in Wuhan), we would need >44% reduction in COVID-19 transmission to completely avert a local epidemic. A reduction of this magnitude could, however, substantially atten the peak of and area under the epidemic curve, thus reducing the risk of exceeding the healthcare system capacity, potentially saving many lives, especially older adults [39,40,42,44,51].…”

“…We found eight studies that evaluated differences across demographic and socio-economic strata, age and COVID-19 pandemic [39,[41][42][43]46,47,50,53]. These studies found that COVID-19 was often associated with people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) populations in lower socio-economic groups, employment in lower band/category, other comorbidities, exposure risks and older age.…”

“…Positive impact of social distancing measures Eleven out of 16 studies identi ed some positive impacts of different SDMs used to reduce transmission of COVID-19 [39-41,43-46,48,50,51,54].The commonest SDMs were: avoiding crowds, border restrictions, isolating in the hospital, appropriate use of PPEs, working from home primarily to reduce the effective reproduction number of SARS-CoV-2 (R o, secondary transmission)[39,40,46,54].…”

“…This indicates participants' increasing concern towards personal hygienic measures. Awareness about COVID-19 is re ected in behaviour and attitude as most participants agreed with social distancing, avoiding travel, self-quarantine and adequate hygiene[48, p.4].Theme 3: Positive changes in people's behaviourWe found four studies (of 16) reported SDMs in uenced people's behaviour[39][40][41]53]. Atchison et al[39] reported that part of the success in early February 2020 was changing people's behaviour to comply with government actions.…”