Viral mitigation and the COVID-19 pandemic: factors associated with adherence to social distancing protocols and hygienic behaviour

Ebrahimi, Omid V.; Hoffart, Asle; Johnson, Sverre Urnes

doi:10.1080/08870446.2021.1960987

Cited by 21 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…This was followed closely by the provision of reminders as a nudging tool. Between the publication of the meta-analysis and the current study, other financial nudging studies have been few and far between, with most research focusing on health-related behaviours surrounding the pandemic (e.g., social distancing [39]; vaccination [40]; hand hygiene [41]). Empirical nudging studies on financial behaviour since the 2019 meta-analysis are scarce, although some do exist (e.g., choice architecture in retirement plans [42]; reminders for credit card payments [43]; information provision for credit card payments [44]).…”

Section: Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Do Risky Scenarios Affect Forecasts of Savings and Expenses?

2022

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Many people do not possess the necessary savings to deal with unexpected financial events. People’s biases play a significant role in their ability to forecast future financial shocks: they are typically overoptimistic, present-oriented, and generally underestimate future expenses. The purpose of this study is to investigate how varying risk information influences people’s financial awareness, in order to reduce the chance of a financial downfall. Specifically, we contribute to the literature by exploring the concept of ‘nudging’ and its value for behavioural changes in personal financial management. While of great practical importance, the role of nudging in behavioural financial forecasting research is scarce. Additionally, the study steers away from the standard default choice architecture nudge, and adds originality by focusing on eliciting implementation intentions and precommitment strategies as types of nudges. Our experimental scenarios examined how people change their financial projections in response to nudges in the form of new information on relevant risks. Participants were asked to forecast future expenses and future savings. They then received information on potential events identified as high-risk, low-risk or no-risk. We investigated whether they adjusted their predictions in response to various risk scenarios or not and how such potential adjustments were affected by the information given. Our findings suggest that the provision of risk information alters financial forecasting behaviour. Notably, we found an adjustment effect even in the no-risk category, suggesting that governments and institutions concerned with financial behaviour can increase financial awareness merely by increasing salience about possible financial risks. Another practical implication relates to splitting savings into different categories, and by using different wordings: A financial advisory institution can help people in their financial behaviour by focusing on ‘targets’, and by encouraging (nudging) people to make breakdown forecasts rather than general ones.

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Section: Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Do Risky Scenarios Affect Forecasts of Savings and Expenses?

2022

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“…While our work strongly suggests that the adoption of economic shutdown measures in BC is, in the long term, a responsible strategy, the shutdown in BC has caused a significant increase in deaths due to drug overdoses there [34]; the excess (total overdose deaths over and above the usual average) for March to June 2020, exceeds the total number of COVID-19 deaths for that time period by over 40% [34,35]. A number of factors are probably involved in this mortality, including the disruption of regular drug supply chains, through border closures, leading to an increasingly toxic drug supply [36], the reduction in access to harm reduction services as a result of physical distancing protocols [36], and increased stress resulting from increased isolation and economic uncertainty [37][38][39] (similar patterns have been observed in the USA [40]). The value of these lost lives could have a significant effect on our cost calculations, but assessing the relation between the level of economic shutdown and the number of overdose deaths is not straightforward.…”

Section: Other Costsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, mental health, in general, is known to suffer during community disasters [47,48], including pandemics. Research is emerging regarding the effects of COVID-19 nonpharmaceutical measures on mental health [37][38][39]49,50], but costs are difficult to determine at this stage.…”

Section: Other Costsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimal shutdown strategies for COVID-19 with economic and mortality costs: British Columbia as a case study

2021

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Decision makers with the responsibility of managing policy for the COVID-19 epidemic have faced difficult choices in balancing the competing claims of saving lives and the high economic cost of shutdowns. In this paper, we formulate a model with both epidemiological and economic content to assist this decision-making process. We consider two ways to handle the balance between economic costs and deaths. First, we use the statistical value of life, which in Canada is about C$7 million, to optimize over a single variable, which is the sum of the economic cost and the value of lives lost. Our second method is to calculate the Pareto optimal front when we look at the two variables—deaths and economic costs. In both cases we find that, for most parameter values, the optimal policy is to adopt an initial shutdown level which reduces the reproduction number of the epidemic to close to 1. This level is then reduced once a vaccination programme is underway. Our model also indicates that an oscillating policy of strict and mild shutdowns is less effective than a policy which maintains a moderate shutdown level.

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“…Against this backdrop, addiction medicine specialists have reported that BD cases have increased in Japan during the pandemic ( Calvey et al, 2020 ). This may have important public health implications not only because the prevalence of BD was already high in Japan before the coronavirus pandemic began ( Bergmark and Kuendig, 2008 , World Health Organisation, 2018 ) but also because recent research from other countries has shown that increased alcohol consumption ( Ebrahimi et al, 2021 ), BD ( Einberger et al, 2021 , Suffoletto et al, 2020 ) and alcohol abuse ( Taylor et al, 2021 ) are all linked to non-compliance with COVID-19 preventive measures. Together with other research that has linked alcohol consumption to symptomatic (vs. asymptomatic) COVID-19 infection ( Saurabh et al, 2021 ), SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity and a self-reported infection history ( Kianersi et al, 2021 ) and an increased risk for developing acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) when hospitalized for COVID-19 ( Lassen et al, 2021 ), this highlights the importance of research focused on alcohol use and misuse during the COVID-19 pandemic.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%