Measuring voluntary and policy-induced social distancing behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic
Measuring voluntary and policy-induced social distancing behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.2008814118
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发表时间：
2021-04-20
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Omer, Saad B.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Yan, Youpei;Malik, Amyn A.;Omer, Saad B.
呆在家里，避免不必要的接触是遏制COVID-19和限制死亡的重要组成部分。美国的每个州都制定了鼓励疏远的政策，有些州还强制要求呆在家里。了解这些政策如何与个人对COVID-19疫情的自愿反应相互作用，是了解这些非药物干预措施在传播动态中的作用和评估政策影响的关键第一步。我们使用政策反应的变化沿着智能设备数据，这些数据测量了美国人呆在家里的时间，以解开观察到的呆在家里的行为变化是由政策引起的程度。我们发现有证据表明，居家命令和对当地报告的COVID-19病例和死亡的自愿反应导致了行为改变。对于中位数县，其中实施了留在家里的订单约两个案件，我们发现，留在家里的订单增加了时间在家里，如果县经历了29个额外的本地病例的反应。然而，在某些县，呆在家里的命令的相对影响要大得多。一方面，这一任务可被视为取代了对案件增加的自愿反应。另一方面，政策加快了反应速度，这可能有助于在大流行的早期阶段减少传播。重要的是要能够归因于自利行为或政策授权的相对作用，以了解依赖自愿行为而不是强加留在家里的命令的限制和机会。
Staying home and avoiding unnecessary contact is an important part of the effort to contain COVID-19 and limit deaths. Every state in the United States enacted policies to encourage distancing and some mandated staying home. Understanding how these policies interact with individuals' voluntary responses to the COVID-19 epidemic is a critical initial step in understanding the role of these nonpharmaceutical interventions in transmission dynamics and assessing policy impacts. We use variation in policy responses along with smart device data that measures the amount of time Americans stayed home to disentangle the extent that observed shifts in staying home behavior are induced by policy. We find evidence that stay-at-home orders and voluntary response to locally reported COVID-19 cases and deaths led to behavioral change. For the median county, which implemented a stay-at-home order with about two cases, we find that the response to stay-at-home orders increased time at home as if the county had experienced 29 additional local cases. However, the relative effect of stay-at-home orders was much greater in select counties. On the one hand, the mandate can be viewed as displacing a voluntary response to this rise in cases. On the other hand, policy accelerated the response, which likely helped reduce spread in the early phase of the pandemic. It is important to be able to attribute the relative role of self-interested behavior or policy mandates to understand the limits and opportunities for relying on voluntary behavior as opposed to imposing stay-at-home orders.