Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has seen health preventive behaviors to prevent spread of the virus become highly politicized in the United States. A clear division exists between Democrats favoring health preventive measures and Republicans often defying such measures. Amid increasing fear of the virus, the 2020 United States presidential election became central to how the pandemic should be managed. This longitudinal study examines whether the frequency of handwashing and mask-wearing changed after the United States election. The study further explores whether political partisanship played a part in the change. Results show that handwashing and mask-wearing increased among Democrats after the election. However, Republican’s use of masks and handwashing decreased. These results are explained in terms of loyalty to outgoing President Trump among Republicans and renewed feelings of efficacy among Democrats.
Highlights
As of April 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic has seen 127 million cases and over 2.8 million deaths globally (Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, 2020)
The survey included demographic questions, a question assessing how often participants washed their hands after being in a public place, a question measuring how often participants wore a mask in public, and a Fear of COVID-19 scale modified from the Fear of HIV/AIDS Scale (Bouton et al, 1987)
For self-identified Democrats there was a significant increase in handwashing from before the election (M 3.00, SD 1.31) to after the election (M 4.05, SD 1.04), t (153) -19.35, p < 0.001, r 0.32
Summary
As of April 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic has seen 127 million cases and over 2.8 million deaths globally (Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, 2020). From the start of the pandemic, The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) advised handwashing, but only recently advised mask-wearing in public to combat the spread of the virus (WHO, 2020). Nations such as Canada, South Korea, the Czech Republic, and New Zealand, among others, have required or advised their citizens to wear masks in public places (Croucher et al, 2021; Government of Canada, 2020; Government of the Czech Republic, 2020; Lee, 2020). This paper analyses public (maskwearing) and private (handwashing) preventive behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Following theories of health behavior, individuals’ likelihood to adopt these behaviors is measured longitudinally before and after the 2020 United States presidential election
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