RAPID: Higher Order Beliefs during a Pandemic: Theory and Evidence to Test the Effects of Public Health Campaigns

社交距离对于减缓新冠肺炎疫情的传播至关重要，因为它威胁着国家的健康、经济和国防。这项研究项目研究了人们在决定是否遵守公共卫生规则时的策略性行为。该项目使用复杂的经济理论和实证方法来研究可能阻碍或促进遵守公共卫生指南以减少新冠肺炎传播的战略考虑因素。一个人选择遵守社交距离规则，会影响其他人这样做的成本和收益。因此，个人行为取决于对他人遵守的信念和关于遵守的社会规范。该项目增加了对群体环境中个人行为的理解，并强调了在大众媒体活动中宣传的好处可能是有益的条件，并为美国居民提供了数十万公共卫生邮递员。这一研究项目的结果将有助于公共卫生当局制定更有效的公共宣传活动。本研究项目以库克县的大量数据为基础，采用理论和实证相结合的方法，研究人们对他人反应的信念如何影响其遵守公共卫生规则的决定。该理论扩展了先前对两个战略考虑因素的研究，即顺从和搭便车，这两个因素通过结合相关的宣传现象来影响行为。研究发现，只有在顺从占主导地位的搭便车时，宣传才能放大亲社会行为；否则，宣传将削弱信息运动的有效性。这些经验分析了伊利诺伊州库克县的一场大规模公共卫生运动。这项运动将直接向库克县数十万个家庭提供公共卫生最佳做法。利用公共信息和自愿调查的组合，我们将评估公共卫生运动在促进降低传播新冠肺炎风险的行为方面的有效性。这一研究项目的结果将帮助公共卫生当局制定更有效的公共信息活动。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Social distancing is critical to slowing the spread of COVID-19 pandemic, which threatens the nation’s health, economy, and national defense. This research project studies people’s strategic behavior in deciding to follow public health rules or not. The project uses sophisticated economic theory and empirical methods to study strategic considerations that may hamper or facilitate compliance with public health guidelines to reduce the spread of COVID-19. One person’s choice to comply with social distancing regulation influences the costs and benefits to others doing so. As a result, individual behavior depends on beliefs about others’ compliance and on social norms regarding compliance. This project increases understanding of individual behavior in group settings and highlights the conditions under which benefits of publicity in mass media campaigns, and provides hundreds of thousands of public health mailers to American residents may be beneficial. The results of this research project will help public health authorities to craft more efficient public information campaigns. This research project uses theory and empirical methods based on a large data set from Cook county to investigate how beliefs in other peoples’ response influence one’s decision to comply with public health rules. The theory extends previous research on two strategic considerations, conformity, and free-riding, that influence behavior by incorporating the related phenomenon of publicity. Publicity is found to amplify pro-social behavior only when conformity dominates free-riding; otherwise publicity will lessen the effectiveness of an informational campaign. The empirics analyze a vast public health campaign in Cook County, Illinois. The campaign will provide public health best practices directly to hundreds of thousands of Cook County households. Using a mix of public information and a voluntary survey, we will evaluate the effectiveness of the public health campaign in promoting behaviors identified as decreasing the risk of transmitting COVID-19. The results of this research project will help public health authorities to craft more efficient public information campaigns.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.