Awareness, knowledge and trust in the Greek authorities towards COVID-19 pandemic: results from the Epirus Health Study cohort

Abstract

Background To assess the level of knowledge and trust in the policy decisions taken regarding the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic among Epirus Health Study (EHS) participants. Methods The EHS is an ongoing and deeply-phenotyped prospective cohort study that has recruited 667 participants in northwest Greece until August 31st, 2020. Level of knowledge on coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) transmission and COVID-19 severity was labeled as poor, moderate or good. Variables assessing knowledge and beliefs towards the pandemic were summarized overall and by sex, age group (25–39, 40–49, 50–59, ≥60 years) and period of report (before the lifting of lockdown measures in Greece: March 30th to May 3rd, and two post-lockdown time periods: May 4th to June 31st, July 1st to August 31st). A hypothesis generating exposure-wide association analysis was conducted to evaluate the associations between 153 agnostically-selected explanatory variables and participants’ knowledge. Correction for multiple comparisons was applied using a false discovery rate (FDR) threshold of 5%. Results A total of 563 participants (49 years mean age; 60% women) had available information on the standard EHS questionnaire, the clinical and biochemical measurements, and the COVID-19-related questionnaire. Percentages of poor, moderate and good knowledge status regarding COVID-19 were 4.5, 10.0 and 85.6%, respectively. The majority of participants showed absolute or moderate trust in the Greek health authorities for the management of the epidemic (90.1%), as well as in the Greek Government (84.7%) and the official national sources of information (87.4%). Trust in the authorities was weaker in younger participants and those who joined the study after the lifting of lockdown measures (p-value≤0.001). None of the factors examined was associated with participants’ level of knowledge after correction for multiple testing. Conclusions High level of knowledge about the COVID-19 pandemic and trust in the Greek authorities was observed, possibly due to the plethora of good quality publicly available information and the timely management of the pandemic at its early stages in Greece. Information campaigns for the COVID-19 pandemic should be encouraged even after the lifting of lockdown measures to increase public awareness.

Adherence to Mediterranean Diet and Cognitive Abilities in the Greek Cohort of Epirus Health Study

“…The EHS collects information on socio-demographic characteristics, lifestyle data, anthropometric, biochemical, clinical and cognitive measurements. A detailed description of the data collection procedure has been described previously [31]. Briefly, all participants were interviewed and examined by two trained medical professionals at recruitment.…”

Greek population’s perceptions of nonpharmacological interventions towards the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic mitigation: A regressionbased association analysis

“…Neither validated scales nor instruments were utilized, thus measurement precision or errors cannot be estimated, despite the fact that bias related to question forming was addressed. Also, this study did not assess the public's knowledge in the field of the routes of COVID-19 transmission or the public's trust towards authorities, as other studies undertaken in the general Greek population have done 35 . These features suggest that generalization of our study findings should be carefully performed in other population subgroups, while it is not encouraged in elderly people who were not represented adequately in our sample.…”

Mediterranean diet related metabolite profiles and cognitive performance in a Greek population

“…Information about demographic characteristics (i.e., age, sex, educational level) and lifestyle factors (i.e., recreational physical activity, smoking habits, alcohol consumption) was collected through a standard questionnaire, more details of which were previously described [21]. Body weight and standing height were measured using SECA equipment and body mass index (BMI) was calculated as weight divided by height squared (kg/m 2 ).…”

“…This is a cross-sectional analysis nested within the EHS, an ongoing population-based prospective cohort study conducted in the Epirus region in the Northwestern Greece. A detailed description of the study design and recruitment procedures have been published elsewhere [21].…”

“…We therefore aimed to analyze plasma metabolites using a high-throughput NMR platform and identify a metabolite profile of adherence to the MedDiet among Greek Middle-aged adults from the EHS [21]. We also investigated cross-sectional associations between the identified metabolite profile and domain-specific cognitive tests.…”