COVID-19 and Behavioral Sciences

Abstract

In March 2020, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic threatening the well-being of people, health systems, and global economies if not managed appropriately. Even with the development of effective vaccines and treatments for COVID-19, measures to manage the spread of infection depend upon the behavior of individuals and their influence on complex public health systems. The application of behavioral sciences to promote adherence to public health and health promotion measures toward protection from COVID-19, such as hand hygiene, mask wearing or social distancing, have been integral to containing and limiting the spread of COVID-19 within our societies. Adherence to the health protection measures is crucial for determining the outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the impact on society.

Rights

© 2022 Jackson, Steed, Pedruzzi, Beyene and Chan. 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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Identifiers

DOI

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.830797

Repository URI

https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/en/publications/7f99db14-2263-4471-8444-b3621194bd71