Personal factors affect physical distancing differently based on demographic characteristics

What is it about?

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, an individual's willingness to physically distance from others according to public health recommendations was affected by numerous factors. Studying two groups of people, parents and adults aged 50 and over, we found that beliefs about the risks of disease, benefits of physical distancing, and ability to follow public health recommendations; life circumstances that might interfere with physical distancing; and the ability to bounce back from challenges as an individual or community could all vary in their effects on physical distancing based on education, income, and race/ethnicity.

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Why is it important?

Public health strategies to improve physical distancing during future pandemics may attempt to use many of the factors we investigated, for example develop messaging around risks or benefits, and our findings show that these strategies will be most effective when targeted to specific groups.