RAPID: Easing COVID-19 Restrictions: How Variation in State Policy and Public Health Messaging Strategies Impact Risk Perceptions and Behaviors Across Time

最近对COVID-19传播动态的研究表明，为了减少这种新型疾病的持续传播，可能需要在2022年之前保持间歇性的身体距离。然而，许多人渴望早日恢复正常，尽管公共卫生官员不断发出警告，但州政府已开始放松此类限制并“重启”经济。有效的风险沟通对于成功度过大流行的下一阶段并减少未来几个月和几年内COVID-19卷土重来的可能性至关重要。本研究研究了在2019冠状病毒病背景下，个人风险认知和随之而来的行为如何与政策和公共卫生信息战略相互作用，更重要的是如何受到政策和公共卫生信息战略的影响。根据在美国六个州进行的关于个人风险认知和行为的多波小组调查收集的数据，该项目为政策制定者和公共卫生官员提供了有用的信息，以便在接近实时的情况下为COVID-19大流行的风险沟通提供信息，特别是在与社交距离、商业关闭和其他风险缓解措施相关的限制被取消和改变的情况下。该项目衡量了个人风险认知和行为在多大程度上不仅受到政府官员使用的不同政策和风险信息策略的影响，还受到种族、经济和性别差异等先前存在的结构性因素的影响。因此，调查结果既为现有的公共卫生战略提供了信息，又促进了与其他正在发生和新出现的危害有关的风险沟通的现有文献。COVID-19大流行是在美国各地（即在COVID-19之前）的健康和社会差距、风险准备政策和政治因素不平衡的背景下出现的。为了应对这一威胁，各州已采取行动，最明显的是发布“居家令”，试图降低风险。这些最初的州一级COVID-19限制措施可作为了解政策设计和风险沟通的T1基线数据，在大流行的危机阶段，可以根据这些数据评估个人的风险感知和风险缓解行为。随着各州放宽与covid -19相关的限制（或在面对第二波限制时收紧），本研究将评估T2和T3恢复阶段政策设计、风险沟通、风险认知和风险缓解行为的变化。从多个州的不同样本中收集重复数据，这些州在三个时间点具有不同的初始条件和政策响应，这将有助于跟踪风险认知和行为如何随着时间的推移而变化，这些州的政策和风险沟通如何影响这些变化，以及类似的风险沟通方法的效果如何在不同的州具有不同的covid - 19前结构条件。这些见解几乎实时地为政策制定者不断演变的COVID-19大流行风险沟通策略提供信息，并在多个社会科学领域产生新知识，为缓解其他新出现的风险提供信息。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Recent studies of the transmission dynamics of COVID-19 suggest that intermittent physical distancing may be required until well into 2022 in order to reduce the continued spread of this novel disease. However, many individuals are eager to return to normalcy sooner, and state governments have begun the process of easing such restrictions and “restarting” their economies, despite continued warnings by public health officials. Effective risk communication is imperative to successfully navigating this next phase of the pandemic and reducing the possibility of a resurgence of COVID-19 in the coming months and years. This research studies the ways in which individual risk perceptions and consequent behaviors interact with and, more importantly, are shaped by policy and public health messaging strategies in the context of COVID-19. Based on data collected through a multi-wave panel survey across six U.S. states on individual risk perceptions and behaviors, this project provides usable information to policy makers and public health officials to inform risk communication for the COVID-19 pandemic in near real-time, particularly as restrictions related to social distancing, business closures, and other risk mitigation measures are lifted and changed. This project measures the extent to which individual risk perceptions and behaviors are shaped by not only the differential policies and risk messaging strategies utilized by government officials, but also by preexisting structural factors, such as racial, economic, and gender disparities. As such, the findings simultaneously inform existing public health strategies while advancing the extant literature on risk communication relevant to other on-going and emerging hazards.The COVID-19 pandemic emerged against the backdrop of an uneven landscape of health and social disparities, risk preparedness policies, and political factors across the United States (i.e., at pre-COVID time T0). In response to this threat, states have taken actions, most notably issuing stay-at-home orders, to attempt to mitigate risk. These initial state-level COVID-19 restrictions serve as T1 baseline data for understanding policy design and risk communication, against which individual risk perception and risk mitigation behavior can be assessed during the crisis phase of the pandemic. As COVID-19-related restrictions are eased across states (or tightened in the face of a second wave) over time, this study will assess changes in policy design, risk communication, risk perception, and risk mitigation behavior in the recovery phase at T2 and T3. Collecting repeated data from a diverse sample of individuals across multiple states characterized by different initial conditions and policy responses at three time points will allow tracking how risk perceptions and behaviors change over time, how these states’ policies and risk communication influence such changes, and how the effects of similar risk communication approaches vary across states with different pre-COVID structural conditions. These insights inform policy makers’ evolving risk communication strategies about the COVID-19 pandemic in near real-time, as well as generating new knowledge across multiple fields of social science that can inform mitigation of other emerging risks.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.