Understanding public support for COVID-19 pandemic mitigation measures over time: Does it wear out?

Abstract

BackgroundCOVID-19 mitigation measures intend to protect public health, but their adverse psychological, social, and economic effects weaken public support. Less favorable trade-offs may especially weaken support for more restrictive measures. Support for mitigation measures may also differ between population subgroups who experience different benefits and costs, and decrease over time, a phenomenon termed “pandemic fatigue.”MethodsWe examined self-reported support for COVID-19 mitigation measures in the Netherlands over 12 consecutives waves of data collection between April 2020 and May 2021 in an open population cohort study. Participants were recruited through community panels of the 25 regional public health services, and through links to the online surveys advertised on social media. The 54,010 unique participants in the cohort study on average participated in 4 waves of data collection. Most participants were female (65%), middle-aged [57% (40–69 years)], highly educated (57%), not living alone (84%), residing in an urban area (60%), and born in the Netherlands (95%).ResultsCOVID-19 mitigation measures implemented in the Netherlands remained generally well-supported over time [all scores >3 on 5-point scale ranging 1 (low)−5 (high)]. During the whole period studied, support was highest for personal hygiene measures, quarantine and wearing face masks, high but somewhat lower for not shaking hands, testing and self-isolation, and restricting social contacts, and lowest for limiting visitors at home, and not traveling abroad. Women and higher educated people were more supportive of some mitigation measures than men and lower educated people. Older people were more supportive of more restrictive measures than younger people, and support for more socially restrictive measures decreased most over time in higher educated people or in younger people.ConclusionsThis study found no support for pandemic fatigue in terms of a gradual decline in support for all mitigation measures in the first year of the pandemic. Rather, findings suggest that support for mitigation measures reflects a balancing of benefits and cost, which may change over time, and differ between measures and population subgroups.

Psychosocial determinants of handwashing and physical distancing behaviour during the Covid-19 pandemic in the Netherlands: a longitudinal analysis

“…Our results thus contradict previous studies finding that pandemic fatigue led to lower adherence to behavioural guidelines over time (Franzen & Wohner, 2021;Ross & Dutton, 2023), likely because we controlled for changes in pandemic severity (Wilson, 2023). Our study expands on earlier analyses that indicated that support for measures remained high throughout the first year of the pandemic in the Netherlands (De Wit et al, 2023), showing that even with prolonged duration, people increased their adherence to behavioural guidelines when the pandemic situation became more severe.…”

Cohort profile: The Corona Behavioral Unit cohort, a longitudinal mixed-methods study on COVID-19-related behavior, well-being and policy support in the Netherlands

“…COVID-19 preventive measures have been introduced to protect public health, but their adverse psychological, social, and economic impact may have weakened their popular support over time. We found that during the first two years of the pandemic, overall support declined for all measures and was systematically lower for those measures that were more socially restrictive [ 16 ]. More specifically, differences in support were most evident among different age groups (i.e., higher support for hygienic measures among younger participants and higher support for measures restricting social contacts among older participants), and less so for other demographical factors such as living situation or educational level.…”

The psychological determinants of avoiding crowded areas: An international and political investigation

“…Furthermore, during the COVID-19 pandemic, authori ties asked people to reduce clusters of infection by practicing social distancing (Fraser & Aldrich, 2021). While these measures aimed at reducing the congestion of hospital beds and preventing deaths, especially in settings that share higher infection rates (Hamidi et al, 2020;Van Bavel et al, 2020), they were met with antagonism in various settings (De Wit et al, 2023;Guglielmi et al, 2020).…”