Abstract
ObjectiveTo evaluate factors associated with COVID-19 preventive health behaviors among adults in Mexico City and the State of Mexico.Methods and findingsWe conducted a cross-sectional survey from June to October 2020 through a structured, internet-based questionnaire in a non-probabilistic sample of adults >18 years living in Mexico City and the State of Mexico. The independent variables included sociodemographic and clinical factors; health literacy; access to COVID-19 information; and perception of COVID-19 risk and of preventive measures’ effectiveness. The dependent variable was COVID-19 preventive health behaviors, defined as the number of preventive actions adopted by participants. The data were analyzed through multivariate negative binomial regression analysis. The survey was completed by 1,030 participants. Most participants were women (70.7%), had a high school or above level of education (98.8%), and had adequate health literacy and access to COVID-19 information. Only 18% perceived having a high susceptibility to COVID-19, though 83.8% recognized the disease’s severity and 87.1% the effectiveness of preventive measures. The median number of COVID-19 preventive actions was 13.5 (range 0–19). The factors associated with preventive health behavior were being female, of older age, a professional worker, a homemaker, or a retiree; engaging in regular physical exercise; having high health literacy and access to COVID-19 information sources; and perceiving COVID-19 as severe and preventive measures as effective.ConclusionPeople with high education and internet access in Mexico City and the State of Mexico reported significant engagement in COVID-19 preventive actions during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Highlights
Preventive health behaviors by individuals and communities are the primary strategy for reducing transmission and controlling the spread of any novel aggressive infection that lacks evidence-based treatment and vaccine prevention [1]
Less than half of respondents lived with their life partner (35.7%), older adult(s) (28.9%), or children (42.7%); 14.7% of participants were active smokers, while only 34.2% practiced regular physical exercise during the COVID19 pandemic
A third of respondents (29.8%) had underlying medical conditions that increased the risk of COVID-19 severity and 5.2% had contracted and recovered from COVID-19
Summary
Preventive health behaviors by individuals and communities are the primary strategy for reducing transmission and controlling the spread of any novel aggressive infection that lacks evidence-based treatment and vaccine prevention [1]. Sociodemographic, psychological, information-related, and cultural factors influence individual- and community-level health behaviors [2, 3]. Sociodemographic factors, such as being a woman and being older and more educated increase the probability of preventive health behaviors during a pandemic. Cultural norms influence health behaviors; countries with strict social norms and penalizations for deviance, such as China and Japan, have been more likely to impose individual and community preventive health behaviors than countries with more permissive social norms, such as Italy and Brazil [5]. Several studies confirmed most of these factors during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic [6,7,8,9,10,11]
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