Abstract
To assess whether socio-cultural values are population-level risk factors for health, I sought to predict COVID-19-related mortality between 2 weeks and 6 months after the first COVID-19-related death in a country based on values extracted from the World Values Survey for different country sets, after controlling for various confounding variables. COVID-19-related mortality was increased in countries endorsing political participation but decreased in countries with greater trust in institutions and materialistic orientations. The values were specific to COVID-19-related mortality, did not predict general health outcomes, and values predicting increased COVID-19-related mortality predicted decreased mortality from other outcomes (e.g., environmental-related mortality).
Highlights
Individual behavior accounts for a third of premature loss of life (Stanaway et al, 2018)
Across country-sets and snapshots, the three World Values Survey (WVS) predictors most consistently associated with a decrease of COVID-19-related mortality were a weaker endorsement of freedom of speech as a goal for the country, a greater endorsement of maintenance of order as a goal for the country, and a greater confidence in major companies
Increased endorsement of freedom of speech or related WVS predictors were associated with increased COVID-19-related mortality across country-sets; inspection of the correlation coefficients in Table 1 suggests that this variable was generally the most important predictor of COVID-19-related mortality
Summary
Individual behavior accounts for a third of premature loss of life (Stanaway et al, 2018). Some food taboos are toxicity-related (Henrich & Henrich, 2010), diet affects cardiovascular disease prevalence across ethnic groups (Volgman et al, 2018), and intra-couple power relations predict HIV prevalence in young women (Jewkes, Dunkle, Nduna, & Shai, 2010). This raises the possibility that, at the population level, socio-cultural values might be risk factors for disease susceptibility, by promoting both health-related behaviors and institutional structures that affect health. The WVS is a global set of national surveys tracking values and beliefs; it comprises questions assessing, among many other values, attitudes towards democracy, gender equality, religion and economic inequality
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