Balancing ‘Risk Awareness' and ‘Pandemic Worry'? Evidence from Covid 19

Cristina Vilaplana-Prieto
University of Murcia

Abstract

Few studies have explored how health system trust affects adherence to recommendations amidst the COVID-19 pandemic (staying at home, not attend social gatherings, keeping a distance of at least 2 meters with people, informing others if hvaing symptoms and washing hands frequently). This paper contributes to this question estimating a difference-in-difference strategy using two datasets of 28 European countries before-after the first wave of the pandemic combined with regional level epidemiologic data. To take into account the level of risk inherent in each country to face a health emergency, countries are classified according to the Inform COVID-19 Risk Index. (High risk (HR): Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Ukraine; Moderate risk (MR): Austria, Belgium, France, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, United Kingdom; Low risk (LR): Denmark, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland). The announcement of restrictive measures increases the probability of staying home and not attending social gatherings by 8pp in LR countries (not significant in the other groups). The probability of maintaining social distance increases by 10.5pp in LR countries on (compared to 1.4pp in MR countries and a non-significant effect in HR countries). Unlike the other two groups, HR countries do not experience an increase in the probability of informing people if having symptoms. Frequent hand washing is the only behaviour which increases for three groups of countries. Restrictive measures do not appear to have the desired effect in terms of raising awareness of the need to bend the pandemic curve. In LR countries, they provide an incentive to comply with safety measures, but this may increase stress and anxiety. In HR countries, greater compliance with health recommendations is not generally appreciated.

Presentation