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Emotional responses to COVID-19 stressors increase avoidance of health information and access to care

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  • Gustafson, Christopher R.

    (University of Nebraska-Lincoln)

  • Brooks, Kathleen R.
  • Meerza, Syed Imran Ali
  • Yiannaka, Amalia

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic, like other crises, has had direct and indirect impacts on people’s lives, many of which have been negative. However, there is little evidence about how COVID-19 affects decision-making. Emotional responses to COVID-19- related stressors, such as local cases and income loss, provide a pathway for these stressors to affect decision-making. In this study, we examine linkages between exposure to COVID-19-related stressors—focusing on temporally specific local case counts and loss of income due to the pandemic—and behaviors for important health decisions with both individual (accessing health care) and societal (accessing information about antimicrobial resistance (AMR)) relevance. In the analysis of two health behaviors that use data from 1) a custom AMR survey and 2) the U.S. Census’s Household Pulse Survey, which asked about accessing healthcare, we find that exposure to COVID-19 stressors significantly increases feelings of hopelessness. Higher levels of hopelessness are associated with an increased probability of avoiding health information about AMR and foregoing or delaying needed medical care. Mediation analysis confirms that hopelessness is an important pathway through which COVID-19-related stressors affect avoidance behaviors. Our results suggest that large- scale crises may diminish action on other important personal and societal health issues facing humanity through emotion-mediated changes in decision-making.

Suggested Citation

  • Gustafson, Christopher R. & Brooks, Kathleen R. & Meerza, Syed Imran Ali & Yiannaka, Amalia, 2023. "Emotional responses to COVID-19 stressors increase avoidance of health information and access to care," OSF Preprints 3u54z, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:3u54z
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/3u54z
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Michele Di Maio & Valerio Leone Sciabolazza, 2021. "Conflict exposure and health: Evidence from the Gaza Strip," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(9), pages 2287-2295, September.
    2. Meerza, Syed Imran Ali & Brooks, Kathleen R. & Gustafson, Christopher R. & Yiannaka, Amalia, 2021. "Information avoidance behavior: Does ignorance keep us uninformed about antimicrobial resistance?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
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