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Who Cares? A Pilot Study of Pandemic Influenza Risk Perception in an Urban Population

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2021

Tecwyn Davies Open the ORCID record for Tecwyn Davies [Opens in a new window]  and
Dan Wolf Meyrowitsch
Tecwyn Davies*
Affiliation:
Global Health Section, Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Dan Wolf Meyrowitsch
Affiliation:
Global Health Section, Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
*
Corresponding author: Tecwyn Davies, Email: tecwyn.davies@monashhealth.org.
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Abstract

Objective:

The association of urban population sociodemographic factors and components of pandemic influenza risk perception were studied.

Methods:

A prospective questionnaire-based study was undertaken between March 14, 2019 and October 18, 2019. A total of 464 questionnaires were distributed to 4 primary medical centers in 2 cities in England and Wales. Persons aged over 16 years presenting to the medical centers were asked to participate.

Results:

A total of 222 questionnaires were completed (return rate 47.8%). Participants were aged 16-84 years, with a median age of 45.5 years. Prevalence of 1 or more chronic diseases was 29.1%. Seasonal flu vaccination within 5 years was reported by 58.9%. Bivariate analyses of chronic disease and influenza vaccination observed a statistically significant association with influenza personal susceptibility expression (OR = 0.45; 95% CI: 0.22 - 0.94) and (OR = 0.50; 95% CI: 0.25 - 0.99) respectively. Multivariate analysis observed a statistically significant association between the presence of chronic disease and low comparative risk expression (OR = 0.33; 95% CI: 0.15 – 0.74) (P = 0.007).

Conclusions:

Respondents identifying as ‘healthy’ are more likely to express lower risk perception of pandemic influenza. Importantly, this target group is not the usual focus of influenza campaigns and are perhaps more likely to disregard health advice. Factors influencing perceptions of this target group could be an important focus of future pandemic risk perception research.

Keywords

pandemicrisk perceptioninfectionbehaviorvirus
Type
Original Research
Information
Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness , Volume 16 , Issue 5 , October 2022 , pp. 1982 - 1989
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc.

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