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Public Compliance Matters in Evidence-Based Public Health Policy: Evidence from Evaluating Social Distancing in the First Wave of COVID-19

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  • Caixia Wang

    (Qu Qiubai School of Government, Changzhou University, Changzhou 213159, China)

  • Huijie Li

    (School of Public Administration, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, China)

Abstract

When the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic first spread, governments could implement a wide range of measures to tackle the outbreaks. Conventional wisdom holds that public health policy should be made on the basis of empirical demonstrations, while little research has probed on how to safeguard the expected policy utility in the case of evidence shortage on novel contagious diseases. In particular, the fight against COVID-19 cannot succeed without public compliance as well as the support of people who have not tested positive. Based on the data from the first wave of COVID-19, by using a random effect estimator, fixed effect method, and hierarchical technique, we specified the efficiency of particular social distancing policies by contextualizing multiple factors. We found that adopting gathering restrictions decreased new case growth but were conditional on its interaction with population density, while mitigation effects constantly corresponded to policy magnitude in a given time; for which the effective patterns varied from three days to sixty days. Overall, policies encouraging social distancing exerted a positive effect on mitigating the first wave of COVID-19. Both the enforcing duration and public compliance constrained the expected impact of nonpharmaceutical intervention according to degrees of policy level. These findings suggest that, when evidence is incomplete, the effectiveness of public health crisis management depends on the combination of policy appropriateness and, accordingly, public compliance.

Suggested Citation

  • Caixia Wang & Huijie Li, 2022. "Public Compliance Matters in Evidence-Based Public Health Policy: Evidence from Evaluating Social Distancing in the First Wave of COVID-19," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(7), pages 1-13, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:7:p:4033-:d:782124
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    1. Collins Opoku Antwi & Michelle Allyshia Belle & Seth Yeboah Ntim & Yuanchun Wu & Emmanuel Affum-Osei & Michael Osei Aboagye & Jun Ren, 2022. "COVID-19 Pandemic and International Students’ Mental Health in China: Age, Gender, Chronic Health Condition and Having Infected Relative as Risk Factors," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(13), pages 1-15, June.
    2. Caixia Wang & Huijie Li, 2023. "Variation in Global Policy Responses to COVID-19: A Bidirectional Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(5), pages 1-13, February.

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