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Identifying and understanding risk perceptions—“how bad are the harms” to humans or to what they value that people see as potentially or actually arising from entities or events—has been critical for risk analysis, both for its own sake, and for expected associations between risk perceptions and subsequent outcomes, such as risky or protective behavior, or support for hazard management policies. Cross-sectional surveys have been the dominant method for identifying and understanding risk perceptions, yielding valuable data. However, cross-sectional surveys are unable to probe the dynamics of risk perceptions over time, which is critical to do while living in a dynamically hazardous world and to build causal understandings. Building upon earlier longitudinal panel studies of Americans’ Ebola and Zika risk perceptions using multi-level modeling to assess temporal changes in these views and inter-individual factors affecting them, we examined patterns in Americans’ COVID-19 risk perceptions in six waves across 14 months. The findings suggest that, in general, risk perceptions increased from February 2020 to April 2021, but with varying trends across different risk perception measures (personal, collective, affective, affect, severity, and duration). Factors in baseline risk perceptions (Wave 1) and inter-individual differences across waves differed even more: baseline ratings were associated with how immediate the threat is (temporal distance) and how likely the threat would affect people like oneself (social distance), and following the United States news about the pandemic. Inter-individual trend differences were shaped most by temporal distance, whether local coronavirus infections were accelerating their upward trend, and subjective knowledge about viral transmission. Associations of subjective knowledge and risk trend with risk perceptions could change signs (e.g. from positive to negative) over time. These findings hold theoretical implications for risk perception dynamics and taxonomies, and research design implications for studying risk perception dynamics and their comparison across hazards.
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Temporal shifts in Americans’ risk perceptions of the Zika outbreak
Cross-sectional surveys, despite their value, are unable to probe dynamics of risk perceptions over time. An earlier longitudinal panel study of Americans’ views on Ebola risk inspired this partial replication on Americans’ views of Zika risks, using multilevel modeling to assess temporal changes in these views and inter-individual factors affecting them, and to determine if similar factors were influential for both non-epidemics in the USA. Baseline Zika risk scores – as in the Ebola study – were influenced by dread of the Zika virus, perceptions of a near-miss outbreak, and perceived likelihood of an outbreak. Judgments of both personal risk and national risk from Zika declined significantly, and individual rates of news following predicted slower decline of perceived national risk in both cases. However, few other factors affected changes in Zika risk judgments, which did not replicate in a validation half-sample, whereas several factors slowed or increased the rate of decline in Ebola judgments of the U.S. risk. These differences might reflect differences in the diseases caused by these two viruses – e.g., Ebola’s much greater lethality – but more longitudinal studies across multiple diseases will be needed to test that speculation. Benefits of such studies to health risk analysis outweigh the difficulties they pose.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1644853
- PAR ID:
- 10193593
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Human and Ecological Risk Assessment: An International Journal
- ISSN:
- 1080-7039
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 16
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1080/10807039.2020.1820852
