Hygiene and social distancing as distinct public health related behaviours among university students during the COVID-19 pandemic

Annelot Wismans,Andrew Burke,Frank Janssen,Joern Block,Marcus Dejardin,Olivier Torrès,Roy Thurik,Jinia Mukerjee,Enrico Santarelli,José María Millán,Karl Wennberg,Rui Baptista,Srebrenka Letina,Jorge Barrientos Marín,Ingmar Franken

doi:10.32872/spb.4383

Abstract

Prevailing research on individuals’ compliance with public health related behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic tends to study composite measures of multiple types of behaviours, without distinguishing between different types of behaviours. However, measures taken by governments involve adjustments concerning a range of different daily behaviours. In this study, we seek to explain students’ public health related compliance behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic by examining the underlying components of such behaviours. Subsequently, we investigate how these components relate to individual attitudes towards public health measures, descriptive norms among friends and family, and key demographics. We surveyed 7,403 university students in ten countries regarding these behaviours. Principal Components Analysis reveals that compliance related to hygiene (hand washing, coughing behaviours) is uniformly distinct from compliance related to social distancing behaviours. Regression analyses predicting Social Distancing and Hygiene lead to differences in explained variance and type of predictors. Our study shows that treating public health compliance as a sole construct obfuscates the dimensionality of compliance behaviours, which risks poorer prediction of individuals’ compliance behaviours and problems in generating valid public health recommendations. Affecting these distinct behaviours may require different types of interventions.

Highlights

Prevailing research on individuals’ compliance with public health related behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic tends to study composite measures of multiple types of behaviours, without distinguishing between different types of behaviours
Principal Components Analysis reveals that compliance related to hygiene is uniformly distinct from compliance related to social distancing behaviours
Using the measures of students’ average compliance with Social Distancing and Hygiene obtained from the Principal Components Analysis (PCA), we examine how these behaviours vary between students in different countries

Summary

Introduction

Prevailing research on individuals’ compliance with public health related behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic tends to study composite measures of multiple types of behaviours, without distinguishing between different types of behaviours. Our study shows that treating public health compliance as a sole construct obfuscates the dimensionality of compliance behaviours, which risks poorer prediction of individuals’ compliance behaviours and problems in generating valid public health recommendations. Affecting these distinct behaviours may require different types of interventions. Compliance with public health measures set by authorities during the COVID-19 pandemic consists of two clearly distinct components: Social Distancing and Hygiene. To dampen the spread of COVID-191, public authorities have taken a range of measures including recommendations or restrictions of behaviours, all of which require adjust‐ ments concerning different daily behaviours (Anderson et al, 2020; Hale et al, 2020; Sebhatu et al, 2020). 1) In the paper and in our student survey we refer to ‘COVID-19’ and ‘COVID-19 health recommendations and restrictions’ as synonymous with the SARS-CoV-2 virus for the sake of simplicity and readability

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Conclusion