The relevance of WHO support to member states in measuring and understanding behaviour insights during Covid-19 syndemic

Abstract

Abstract WHO has developed approaches and activities in measuring pandemic fatigue. Member states were consulted on their needs in beginning October 2020. WHO proposed develop national action plans to measure pandemic fatigue, which should be based on the strategies and principles presented in the WHO document “Pandemic Fatigue - Reinvigorating the public to prevent COVID-19”, and on the basis of recommendations in WHO publications: “Risk communication and community engagement readiness and initial response for novel coronaviruses: interim guidance” and “Risk communication and community engagement strategy for COVID-19 template”. WHO has developed a tool for understanding behavior in COVID-19 (“WHO tool for behavioral insights on COVID-19”) in ten steps, with recommendations to countries on how to approach measuring and monitoring pandemic fatige. In doing so, WHO advises countries to establish a national response coordination mechanism involving a wide range of relevant stakeholders. Stakeholders should be involved in all ten steps of implementing the tool to understand people's behavior in relation to COVID-19. A “Survey tool and guidance: behavioural insights on COVID-19” was launched mid October 2020, supporting member states in organizing their Covid-19 fatigue linked surveying activities. Slovenia is running bi-weekly panel surveying (representative national sample of 1000 participants every 14 days) in 20 waves (dec2020/dec21), extensively exploring ineqalities linked to gender, age, socioeconimic status and others in bi-weekly reports. According to the feedback from member states, international dimension is very valuable for all member states. It is very important for them to have the venue for sharing experiences, challenges and strategies to overcome obstacles. New inequalities emerging from the Covid-19 syndemic will be presented in the next four presentations of the workshop.