RAPID: Combating the Spread of COVID-19: Testing Cost-Effective Strategies for Promoting Behavior Change

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Epidemics and pandemics emerge from human behavior and can similarly be mitigated by changing human behavior. Human behavioral changes are themselves shaped by social learning processes---how people come to know, remember, and believe---the consequences of violating recommended safety protocols. This research project will use experimental methods to investigate how different information sharing strategies affect people’s learning about protocols to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and adherence to these protocols. The project will test the relative effectiveness of curiosity inducement strategy (by presenting information in the form of a quiz rather than a direct statement) and peer information sharing strategies (asking message recipients to pass reliable COVID-related safety to several contacts) for social learning about the pandemic in different social context, thus allowing the results of the research to be applicable to broader environments. Understanding which social communication strategy is more effective in promoting social learning about pandemics within different social contexts will allow policy makers to develop and implement more efficient communication strategies to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in particular, and improve social learning generally. The research results will help improve the health and economic well-being of American citizens as well as help establish the United States as the global leader in combating global pandemics.Epidemics and pandemics emerge and are spread by human behavior; similarly, they are mitigated by human behavioral changes that come from social learning. How do people learn—come to remember and believe—the potential consequences of violating recommended safety protocols? What factors influence whether, when, and how people behave differently when given new health-related knowledge? This project will advance research on how alternative information-sharing strategies impact people’s learning of and adherence to public health protocols through three interrelated randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to be conducted in different communities. These RCTs test the effectiveness of two information-sharing techniques designed for delivery via text messages: curiosity inducement (achieved through presenting information in the form of a quiz rather than a direct statement) and peer information sharing (asking message recipients to pass reliable COVID-related safety information on to several contacts). The techniques share the goal of bringing COVID-19 related knowledge and behavior into line with safety protocols set by health authorities. Conducting the RCTs across different communities allows the researchers to understand how social context affect the effectiveness of a particular mode of communication. The results of this research has direct policy relevance to reducing the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to helping to improve the health and economic well-being of Americans, this research project will also help establish the U.S. as the global leader in combating global pandemics.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.