People's political views, perceived social norms, and individualism shape their privacy concerns for and acceptance of pandemic control measures that use individual-level georeferenced data

BACKGROUND

As the COVID-19 pandemic became a major global health crisis, many COVID-19 control measures that use individual-level georeferenced data (e.g., the locations of people's residences and activities) have been used in different countries around the world. Because these measures involve some disclosure risk and have the potential for privacy violations, people's concerns for geoprivacy (locational privacy) have recently heightened as a result, leading to an urgent need to understand and address the geoprivacy issues associated with COVID-19 control measures that use data on people's private locations.

METHODS

We conducted an international cross-sectional survey in six study areas (n = 4260) to examine how people's political views, perceived social norms, and individualism shape their privacy concerns, perceived social benefits, and acceptance of ten COVID-19 control measures that use individual-level georeferenced data. Multilevel linear regression models were used to examine these effects. We also applied multilevel structure equation models (SEMs) to explore the direct, indirect, and mediating effects among the variables.

RESULTS

We observed a tradeoff relationship between people's privacy concerns and the acceptance (and perceived social benefits) of the control measures. People's perceived social tightness and vertical individualism are positively associated with their acceptance and perceived social benefits of the control measures, while horizontal individualism has a negative association. Further, people with conservative political views and high levels of individualism (both vertical and horizontal) have high levels of privacy concerns.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results first suggest that people's privacy concerns significantly affect their perceived social benefits and acceptance of the COVID-19 control measures. Besides, our results also imply that strengthening social norms may increase people's acceptance and perceived social benefits of the control measures but may not reduce people's privacy concerns, which could be an obstacle to the implementation of similar control measures during future pandemics. Lastly, people's privacy concerns tend to increase with their conservatism and individualism.

Political views, health literacy, and COVID-19 beliefs and behaviors: A moderated mediation model

RATIONALE

Mitigating the spread of COVID-19 requires that people understand the need for and engage in protective behaviors. Given the complexity and rapid progression of media information about the pandemic, health literacy could be essential to acquiring the accurate beliefs, concern for societal risks, and appreciation of restrictive policies needed to motivate these behaviors. Yet with the increasingly politicized nature of COVID-related issues in the United States, health literacy could be an asset for those with more liberal views but less so for those with more conservative views.

OBJECTIVE

This study tested a hypothesized model proposing that political views moderate the associations of health literacy with COVID-19 protective behaviors as well as the mediational roles of accurate and inaccurate COVID-19 beliefs, concern for society, and governmental control attitudes.

METHODS

We surveyed residents in three diverse regions of California in June 2020 (N = 669) and February 2021 (N = 611). Participants completed measures of health literacy, political views, and COVID-19 beliefs and behaviors.

RESULTS

Moderated mediational analyses largely supported the proposed model with both samples. Health literacy was associated with more accurate COVID-19 beliefs, less inaccurate COVID-19 beliefs, greater concern for societal risks, more positive attitudes regarding restrictive government control, more protective behavior, less risky behavior, and stronger vaccine intentions; beliefs, concern for society, and governmental control attitudes mediated the health literacy-behavior relationships. As predicted, however, these associations of health literacy with adaptive beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors varied according to political views. The direct and mediated relationships were held for participants with more liberal views and, to a lesser extent, for those with moderate views, but they were weaker or absent for participants with more conservative views.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings contribute new evidence of processes linking health literacy with adaptive beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors and how social and political contexts can shape those processes.

Political views and science literacy as indicators of vaccine confidence and COVID-19 concern

Introduction

The distrust, delay and refusal of vaccinations represent serious threats to global public health. As demonstrated by the dramatic worldwide impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, adequate vaccine coverage against infectious diseases is essential towards the preservation and function of virtually every aspect of our society. While the determinants of vaccine hesitancy and pandemic concern have been widely investigated, conflicting evidence exists with regards to their association with education levels and political views.

Methods

This study aimed to investigate whether science literacy levels and standpoint on social and economic matters are associated with different levels of vaccine confidence and COVID-19 concern. An online survey was circulated amongst participants recruited via convenience sampling, and data were analysed using non-parametric statistical tests.

Results

The survey (n = 389) highlighted that participants who studied Science at General Certificate of Secondary Education level have a lower vaccine confidence than those with both lower and higher levels of science education. Participants with neutral/centrist political views expressed lower confidence than those with a libertarian social stance or a left-wing economic stance. A higher concern with the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with lower levels of science education, libertarian social views, and left-wing economic views.

Conclusions

The present study provides novel insight on the educational and political factors associated with vaccine hesitancy and pandemic concern within a British population sample.