Understanding health behaviour changes in response to outbreaks: Findings from a longitudinal study of a large epidemic of mosquito-borne disease

Raude, Jocelyn; McColl, Kathleen; Flamand, Claude; Apostolidis, Thémis

doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.04.009

Cited by 45 publications

(42 citation statements)

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“…Moreover, survey based studies have found the perceived risk of infection for oneself to decrease considerably over time, during the course of a chikungunya outbreak, another vector-borne disease similar to ZIKV [46].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of news exposure on collective attention in the United States during the 2016 Zika epidemic

et al. 2020

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In recent years, many studies have drawn attention to the important role of collective awareness and human behaviour during epidemic outbreaks. A number of modelling efforts have investigated the interaction between the disease transmission dynamics and human behaviour change mediated by news coverage and by information spreading in the population. Yet, given the scarcity of data on public awareness during an epidemic, few studies have relied on empirical data. Here, we use fine-grained, geo-referenced data from three online sources-Wikipedia, the GDELT Project and the Internet Archive-to quantify populationscale information seeking about the 2016 Zika virus epidemic in the U.S., explicitly linking such behavioural signal to epidemiological data. Geo-localized Wikipedia pageview data reveal that visiting patterns of Zika-related pages in Wikipedia were highly synchronized across the United States and largely explained by exposure to national television broadcast. Contrary to the assumption of some theoretical epidemic models, news volume and Wikipedia visiting patterns were not significantly correlated with the magnitude or the extent of the epidemic. Attention to Zika, in terms of Zika-related Wikipedia pageviews, was high at the beginning of the outbreak, when public health agencies raised an international alert and triggered media coverage, but subsequently exhibited an activity profile that suggests nonlinear dependencies and memory effects in the relation between information seeking, media pressure, and disease dynamics. This calls for a new and more general modelling framework to describe the interaction between media exposure, public awareness and disease dynamics during epidemic outbreaks. Data Availability Statement: Data are available from the Zenodo repository (https://doi.org/10. 5281/zenodo.3603916).data, and we compare it with mentions of Zika in US news outlets and TV shows. We also compare the collective attention received by the outbreak with the incidence of Zika reported by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in each state. We find that the attention dynamics was highly synchronized across states, irrespective of the local risk of transmission of the virus. By building a linear regression model, we show that the dynamics of collective attention is highly predictable, even at state level, only based on the national media coverage received by the outbreak. PLOS COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGYNews exposure and collective attention during epidemics PLOS Computational Biology | https://doi.org/10.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of news exposure on collective attention in the United States during the 2016 Zika epidemic

et al. 2020

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“…Overall, these empirical data suggest that most people in Europe were more subject to "unrealistic" optimism than an excessive pessimism concerning the risk of coronavirus infection. Of course, with the rapid spread of the disease in Europe, as well as potential developments in the biomedical sciences (such as the identification of an effective and affordable treatment against SARS-CoV-2), we could not expect to find the same pattern of risk perceptions and epidemiological predictions in the coming weeks 10 . However, the use of similar questions in future international surveys would make it possible to monitor the change in risk perceptions and health behaviours over time.…”

Section: Directions For Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 98%

Are people excessively pessimistic about the risk of coronavirus infection?

Raude¹,

Debin²,

Souty³

et al. 2020

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The recent emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 in China has raised the spectre of a novel, potentially catastrophic pandemic in both scientific and lay communities throughout the world. In this particular context, people have been accused of being excessively pessimistic regarding the future consequences of this emerging health threat. However, consistent with previous research in social psychology, a large survey conducted in Europe in the early stage of the COVID-19 epidemic shows that the majority of respondents was actually overly optimistic about the risk of infection.

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“…They speculated partial adjustment might stem from delayed communication of objective risk data, an expectation of regression to earlier levels, or expectation of measurement error; they also suggested adaptation might be a long-run, and partial adjustment a short-run, phenomenon (Loewenstein and Mather 1990). Raude et al (2019) found French Guineans experiencing a chikungunya epidemic in two within-person waves across 3 months (before case numbers decreased) increased protective behavior, consistent with the elasticity-prevalence hypothesis. However, perceptions of personal infection risk decreased, which further analyses (e.g., no decrease in risk perceptions for those engaged in a specific protective behavior) suggested was more consistent with the risk habituation than the risk reappraisal hypothesis.…”

Section: Temporal Dynamics Of Risk Perceptionsmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…Economists have been particularly interested in this topic (e.g., Loewenstein and Mather 1990;Raude et al 2019). Under the rubric of "elasticity-prevalence" of prevention decisions (e.g., Geoffard and Philipson 1996), their focus is the effect of the situation on mean risk perceptions in the population.…”

Section: Temporal Dynamics Of Risk Perceptionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…3. Adaptation or habituation: This has been framed variously as hazard experience reducing risk perceptions as a function of current and expected future trends (Loewenstein and Mather 1990), or increasing familiarity tending people to progressively underestimate or neglect hazards over time (Raude et al 2019, citing Thompson 2009, on repeated or prolonged exposure to a stimulus reducing cognitive, emotional or behavioral responses). Loewenstein and Mather (1990) did not find adaptation in their data, 1 but rather what they called partial adjustment, with a rise (drop) in concern lagging behind a rise (drop) in objective risk.…”

Section: Temporal Dynamics Of Risk Perceptionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Temporal shifts in Americans’ risk perceptions of the Zika outbreak

Johnson

Mayorga

2020

Human and Ecological Risk Assessment: An International Journal

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Cross-sectional surveys, despite their value, are unable to probe dynamics of risk perceptions over time. An earlier longitudinal panel study of Americans' views on Ebola risk inspired this partial replication on Americans' views of Zika risks, using multilevel modeling to assess temporal changes in these views and inter-individual factors affecting them, and to determine if similar factors were influential for both non-epidemics in the USA. Baseline Zika risk scoresas in the Ebola studywere influenced by dread of the Zika virus, perceptions of a near-miss outbreak, and perceived likelihood of an outbreak. Judgments of both personal risk and national risk from Zika declined significantly, and individual rates of news following predicted slower decline of perceived national risk in both cases. However, few other factors affected changes in Zika risk judgments, which did not replicate in a validation half-sample, whereas several factors slowed or increased the rate of decline in Ebola judgments of the U.S. risk. These differences might reflect differences in the diseases caused by these two virusese.g., Ebola's much greater lethalitybut more longitudinal studies across multiple diseases will be needed to test that speculation. Benefits of such studies to health risk analysis outweigh the difficulties they pose.

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Understanding health behaviour changes in response to outbreaks: Findings from a longitudinal study of a large epidemic of mosquito-borne disease

Cited by 45 publications

References 48 publications

The impact of news exposure on collective attention in the United States during the 2016 Zika epidemic

The impact of news exposure on collective attention in the United States during the 2016 Zika epidemic

Are people excessively pessimistic about the risk of coronavirus infection?

Temporal shifts in Americans’ risk perceptions of the Zika outbreak

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