Satisfaction with governmental risk communication both increases and decreases COVID-19 mitigation behaviours

Abstract

Objectives: Over three years of the COVID-19 pandemic, and intense societal and governmental response, a wealth of research has examined risk perceptions and public risk mitigation behaviours. The vast majority of this inquiry has focused on health risks. Nevertheless, as a ‘total social fact’ influencing nearly every aspect of quotidian life, the pandemic engenders a wide range of risk perceptions.

Methods: Via a survey (N=4,206) of representative samples of the general public in five European countries (Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, UK), we explore perceptions of a range of personal/public health, economic, and societal risks. We also investigate the effects of perceptions of official governmental risk communication in one’s country on risk perceptions and risk mitigation behaviours.

Results: Structural equation modelling reveals that whilst perceptions of effective risk communication directly increase behaviours that mitigate COVID-19 health risks, these same perceptions indirectly decrease behaviour frequency via a mediated relationship with societal risk perceptions.

Conclusion: The findings highlight the import of governmental authorities analysing and communicating about the range of risk perceptions citizens might have about a ‘total social fact’ such as COVID-19.

Rights

© 2023 Evensen, Warren and Bouder. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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DOI

https://doi.org/10.3389/ijph.2023.1604966

Repository URI

https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/en/publications/daf9a66c-5e2e-499d-a64c-ff1ff37e3e28