RAPID: Factors that affect understanding the risks of COVID-19

Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences - The threat of the COVID-19 virus has not been clearly understood by a substantial portion of the U.S. population. Many people have been slow to adopt attitudes and behaviors that will serve to mitigate the risks of the pandemic. With all the publicity that the virus has engendered, how can this be so? The researchers hypothesize that these failures to change attitude and behavior stem from three factors: failures to realize the impact that this disease has, failures to realize how quickly it will be transmitted, and failures to appreciate the dire consequences it will have on the health care system. In this study, the researcher will examine factors underlying these failures and ways to improve delivery of information relevant to COVID-19. Results and suggestions for improving communication and comprehension are expected to be disseminated widely and expeditiously.

In order to investigate ways of improving the understanding of the risks involving COVID-19, the researchers, a highly experienced and inter-disciplinary team, propose three lines of research. They will examine (a) how different ways of presenting information about the proliferation of the disease affects people?s estimates of its incidence and rates of death, as well as intended future social behavior, (b) how individual differences among individuals and countries along demographic and trait dimensions will influence their estimates of the spread of the disease, and (c) how people are reasoning about the impact of the disease on the viability of the healthcare system. Methods will include measuring the ability to predict risk and consequences of the disease as well as the impact of ?flattening the curve? as functions of several variables, including mode of information presentation, numeracy, motivation, health status, and other demographic and trait variables.

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.