Knowledge, Risk Perceptions, and Xenophobic Attitudes: Evidence from Italy During the Ebola Outbreak

Prati, Gabriele; Pietrantoni, Luca

doi:10.1111/risa.12537

Cited by 84 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Although we must extrapolate cautiously to other times in the United States or other settings in the world, other studies have also reported seemingly measured responses, despite expert and pundit concerns about “panic.” For example, a U.S. survey conducted near the height of public concern (October 21–November 4, 2014) found that, despite being highly salient, Ebola was viewed only as a moderate risk and evoked only moderately high emotions, with sadness being the strongest . A survey conducted in Italy in early 2015 found even lower concern . Related results have been reported from Germany and Israel, among other places .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 85%

Public Understanding of Ebola Risks: Mastering an Unfamiliar Threat

et al. 2017

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Ebola was the most widely followed news story in the United States in October 2014. Here, we ask what members of the U.S. public learned about the disease, given the often chaotic media environment. Early in 2015, we surveyed a representative sample of 3,447 U.S. residents about their Ebola-related beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. Where possible, we elicited judgments in terms sufficiently precise to allow comparing them to scientific estimates (e.g., the death toll to date and the probability of dying once ill). Respondents' judgments were generally consistent with one another, with scientific knowledge, and with their self-reported behavioral responses and policy preferences. Thus, by the time the threat appeared to have subsided in the United States, members of the public, as a whole, had seemingly mastered its basic contours. Moreover, they could express their beliefs in quantitative terms. Judgments of personal risk were weakly and inconsistently related to reported gender, age, education, income, or political ideology. Better educated and wealthier respondents saw population risks as lower; females saw them as higher. More politically conservative respondents saw Ebola as more transmissible and expressed less support for public health policies. In general, respondents supported providing "honest, accurate information, even if that information worried people." These results suggest the value of proactive communications designed to inform the lay public's decisions, thoughts, and emotions, and informed by concurrent surveys of their responses and needs.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 85%

Public Understanding of Ebola Risks: Mastering an Unfamiliar Threat

et al. 2017

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“… 47 48 Similarly, Ebola-related stigma and xenophobic attitudes have been reported elsewhere outside of directly affected countries. 26 49 50 …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other studies have also measured Ebola-related KAP within different populations in sub-Saharan Africa 15–25 and other parts of the world. 26–30 However, few national-level KAP studies have been conducted in Ebola affected countries during periods of active transmission. The present study represents the first national Ebola KAP survey in Sierra Leone—conducted in August 2014—within the first 3 months of a prolonged epidemic that lasted over a year.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

National survey of Ebola-related knowledge, attitudes and practices before the outbreak peak in Sierra Leone: August 2014

Jalloh

Sengeh²,

Monasch

et al. 2017

BMJ Glob Health

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BackgroundThe 2014–2015 Ebola epidemic in West Africa was the largest ever to occur. In the early phases, little was known about public knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) relating to Ebola virus disease (Ebola). Data were needed to develop evidence-driven strategies to address gaps in knowledge and practice.MethodsIn August 2014, we conducted interviews with 1413 randomly selected respondents from 9 out of 14 districts in Sierra Leone using multistage cluster sampling. Where suitable, Ebola-related KAP questions were adapted from other internationally validated questionnaires related to infectious diseases.ResultsAll respondents were aware of Ebola. When asked unprompted, 60% of respondents could correctly cite fever, diarrhoea and vomiting as signs/symptoms of Ebola. A majority of respondents knew that avoiding infected blood and bodily fluids (87%) and contact with an infected corpse (85%) could prevent Ebola. However, there were also widespread misconceptions such as the belief that Ebola can be prevented by washing with salt and hot water (41%). Almost everyone interviewed (95%) expressed at least one discriminatory attitude towards Ebola survivors. Unprompted, self-reported actions taken to avoid Ebola infection included handwashing with soap (66%) and avoiding physical contact with patients with suspected Ebola (40%).ConclusionThree months into the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, our findings suggest there was high awareness of the disease but misconceptions and discriminatory attitudes toward survivors remained common. These findings directly informed the development of a national social mobilisation strategy and demonstrated the importance of KAP assessment early in an epidemic.

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“…Conversations with others, even those not in danger or suspected to be in danger, can also amplify or attenuate the emotional response to an attack . The perception of risk is also constructed and made sense of via conversation within social communities about what is risky and worth worrying about . Conversation within personal networks can thus lead individuals in one social group to dread an outcome that is accepted as normal in another .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tracking and Analyzing Individual Distress Following Terrorist Attacks Using Social Media Streams

2017

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Risk research has theorized a number of mechanisms that might trigger, prolong, or potentially alleviate individuals' distress following terrorist attacks. These mechanisms are difficult to examine in a single study, however, because the social conditions of terrorist attacks are difficult to simulate in laboratory experiments and appropriate preattack baselines are difficult to establish with surveys. To address this challenge, we propose the use of computational focus groups and a novel analysis framework to analyze a social media stream that archives user history and location. The approach uses time-stamped behavior to quantify an individual's preattack behavior after an attack has occurred, enabling the assessment of time-specific changes in the intensity and duration of an individual's distress, as well as the assessment of individual and social-level covariates. To exemplify the methodology, we collected over 18 million tweets from 15,509 users located in Paris on November 13, 2015, and measured the degree to which they expressed anxiety, anger, and sadness after the attacks. The analysis resulted in findings that would be difficult to observe through other methods, such as that news media exposure had competing, time-dependent effects on anxiety, and that gender dynamics are complicated by baseline behavior. Opportunities for integrating computational focus group analysis with traditional methods are discussed.

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Knowledge, Risk Perceptions, and Xenophobic Attitudes: Evidence from Italy During the Ebola Outbreak

Cited by 84 publications

References 30 publications

Public Understanding of Ebola Risks: Mastering an Unfamiliar Threat

Public Understanding of Ebola Risks: Mastering an Unfamiliar Threat

National survey of Ebola-related knowledge, attitudes and practices before the outbreak peak in Sierra Leone: August 2014

Tracking and Analyzing Individual Distress Following Terrorist Attacks Using Social Media Streams

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