Abstract
We investigated what degree of risk of infection with COVID-19 is necessary so that people intend to stay home, even when doing so means losing their salary. We conducted an online survey across Brazil during the initial outbreak, in which 8,345 participants answered a questionnaire designed to identify the maximum tolerated risk (k’) necessary for them to disregard social distancing recommendations and guarantee their salaries. Generalized linear mixed models, path analysis structural equation, and conditional interference classification tree were performed to further understand how sociodemographic factors impact k’ and to establish a predictive model for the risk behavior of leaving home during the pandemic. We found that, on average, people tolerate 38% risk of infection to leave home and earn a full salary, but this number decreased to 13% when the individual risk perception of becoming ill from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 is considered. Furthermore, participants who have a medium-to-high household income and who are older than 35 years are more likely to be part of the risk-taking group who leave home regardless of the potential COVID-19 infection level; while participants over 45 years old and with good financial health are more likely to be part of the risk-averse group, who stay home at the expense of any salary offered. Our findings add to the political and public debate concerning lockdown strategies by showing that, contrary to supposition, people with low socioeconomic status are not more likely to ignore social distancing recommendations due to personal economic matters.
Highlights
Risk perception refers to the subjective assessment that people make regarding the characteristics and severity of a perceived threatening stimulus or situation, including knowledge of the risk of contagion and disease severity [1]
We observed that people tend to disregard social distancing recommendations whenever the chance of COVID-19 infection is lower than 32% (SD = .32, median = .25) and 38% (SD = .31, median = .35) to obtain half and full salary, respectively
We demonstrated that, in Brazil, the chance of COVID-19 infection that someone is willing to tolerate before abiding by social distancing recommendations at the expense of their salaries mainly depends on their risk perception, household income, and financial health
Summary
Risk perception refers to the subjective assessment that people make regarding the characteristics and severity of a perceived threatening stimulus or situation, including knowledge of the risk of contagion and disease severity [1]. Risk behaviors include actions that underlie a goal with uncertainty regarding its outcomes, such as negative costs or possible benefits [2]. Both risk perception and risk behaviors are closely associated with the motivation to embrace selfpreservative care in situations such as disease outbreaks [3]. It has been shown that implementing social-distancing measures early on proved to be effective, reducing the fatalities due to the deceleration of the contagion rate [8], an important political and public debate has arisen since the beginning of the lockdowns
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