RAPID: Identifying the Determinants of Household Emergency Preparedness and Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic

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To manage and contain the devastating COVID-19 pandemic, medical scientists are racing to understand how the virus spreads, how it attacks the body, and how to treat its symptoms. It is equally important for social scientists to understand how the threat of coronavirus infection affects human behavior, so that public health strategies to predict and contain the spread can be improved. The COVID-19 threat has been eliciting dramatically varying psychological and behavioral responses throughout the country. Some people comply with medical experts’ protective action recommendations (PARs) to limit their exposure through actions such as social distancing (maintaining a six-foot distance), others exceed those PARs by self-imposing more extreme isolation, and still others disregard PARs, continuing their normal activities or congregating in close proximity without respiratory protection. The objective of this Rapid Response Research (RAPID) project is to identify determinants of varying behavioral responses to COVID-19 threat, including compliance with official PARs (e.g., social distancing, frequent hand washing) and stockpiling of household supplies (e.g., nonperishable food, cleaning supplies). With a better understanding of the determinants of COVID PAR compliance and stockpiling, public health authorities can develop more effective messages to help reduce the threat of COVID and other pandemic diseases. In addition, for factors that public health authorities cannot change (e.g., people’s demographic characteristics), the project will examine audience segmentation strategies that can be used to guide the tailoring of communication to specific population groups.This research project builds on data gathered during a 2019 survey of Portland (Oregon) Metro area residents’ seismic preparedness intentions and actual preparedness in anticipation of a future earthquake, as well as on a 2020 survey of Boise State University students, staff, and faculty emergency preparedness and response for a variety of hazards, including COVID. It also builds upon a set of 2013 studies of risk perceptions and preparedness related to H7N9 influenza in China and seasonal influenza in Texas. This new project will involve a mail survey of 1000 Portland Metro area regarding their perceptions of, and responses to, the COVID threat. The questionnaire will repeat some of the same items about seismic emergency preparedness as in the 2019 survey, adding new items specific to COVID and to household stockpiling in the face of the pandemic. Also as part of this project, Boise State students, faculty, and staff will be surveyed with a number of the new, COVID-specific survey items. With the new survey data, the research team will be able to draw meaningful conclusions about how perceptions and preparedness behaviors vary across different types of anticipated disasters and across disease threats with different profiles.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.