Public perceptions of multiple risks during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy and Sweden

Abstract

Knowing how people perceive multiple risks is essential to the management and promotion of public health and safety. Here we present a dataset based on a survey (N = 4,154) of public risk perception in Italy and Sweden during the COVID-19 pandemic. Both countries were heavily affected by the first wave of infections in Spring 2020, but their governmental responses were very different. As such, the dataset offers unique opportunities to investigate the role of governmental responses in shaping public risk perception. In addition to epidemics, the survey considered indirect effects of COVID-19 (domestic violence, economic crises), as well as global (climate change) and local (wildfires, floods, droughts, earthquakes, terror attacks) threats. The survey examines perceived likelihoods and impacts, individual and authorities’ preparedness and knowledge, and socio-demographic indicators. Hence, the resulting dataset has the potential to enable a plethora of analyses on social, cultural and institutional factors influencing the way in which people perceive risk.

Fearing fear itself: Crowdsourced longitudinal data on Covid-19-related fear in Sweden

“…In the former, both Italian and Swedish respondents were found to have a positive bias, reporting that they would be less likely than others to experience negative impacts of a range of other possible hazardous events including natural disasters, terror attacks, economic crises, domestic violence, and climate change, but only the Swedish sample demonstrated this optimism in relation to epidemics. The Swedish respondents also reported their knowledge and preparedness as less than that of responsible authorities, whereas the Italian sample reported feeling equal to authorities in this regard [25]. In an anonymous webbased survey distributed via Facebook in March-April 2020 in Norway and Sweden [23], respondents in both countries reported higher levels of worry about the national economy and about postponement of care for other conditions than Covid-19, than about their private economy.…”

“…While there are a number of qualitative, interview-based studies of particular groups (e.g. [20]) and several surveys of the general public using pre-determined response alternatives [21][22][23][24][25][26], nearly all empirical research based on open responses from the general public was based on analysis of social media. Moss et al's [26] Norwegian analysis of 16 interviews with members of the public, recruited via their own networks and snowball sampling, is a notable exception; however these interviews were examined along with analysis of government communication about the pandemic to understand how people made sense of the meta-narrative.…”

“…Using different techniques, surveys have compared public perceptions in Sweden with Italy [25] and Norway [23]. In the former, both Italian and Swedish respondents were found to have a positive bias, reporting that they would be less likely than others to experience negative impacts of a range of other possible hazardous events including natural disasters, terror attacks, economic crises, domestic violence, and climate change, but only the Swedish sample demonstrated this optimism in relation to epidemics.…”

Multiple hazards and risk perceptions over time: The availability heuristic in Italy and Sweden under COVID-19

“…To assess public risk perceptions in Italy and Sweden, we performed two nationwide surveys in 5-19 August 2020 and 9-25 November 2020 (Mondino et al, 2020a). These periods correspond to two different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic with low and high levels of infection rates and excess mortality, as depicted in Figure 1.…”

“…The two national samples used in the surveys are considered representative of the Swedish and Italian population (Mondino et al, 2020a). A total of 4,154 individuals participated in August 2020 (2033 in Italy and 2121 in Sweden) and 4,168 in November 2020 (2004 in Italy and 2164 in Sweden).…”