IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/osfxxx/92ay6.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Following Doctors’ Advice: Explaining the Issuance of Stay-at-Home Orders Related to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) by U.S. Governors

Author

Listed:
  • Murray, Gregg R.

    (Augusta University)

  • Murray, Susan M.

    (Augusta University)

Abstract

Public health experts widely and strongly advocate for aggressive social distancing to slow the spread of serious infectious diseases. While government mandates to social distance protect public health, they can also impose substantial social and economic costs on those subject to them. As a result, government leaders may be reluctant to issue such mandates. The objective of this study is to identify political, social, economic, and scientific factors that influence governors of U.S. states to issue stay-at-home orders (SAHOs) or not to slow the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). It uses event history analysis to investigate the issuance of COVID-19-related gubernatorial SAHOs in the 50 U.S. states from March 1, 2020, the day after the first reported COVID-19-related death in the U.S., to April 10, 2020, several days after the last SAHO was issued. During this 41-day period, 42 of the 50 governors issued such orders affecting more than 90 percent of the country’s residents. The results indicate that scientific factors alone did not inform governors’ decisions. While public health factors related to the spread of the disease informed these decisions, political factors related to the partisanship of the governor and economic factors related to the health of the economy also informed them. The results also provide mixed support for scientific factors related to state healthcare capacity and external factors related to geographic diffusion.

Suggested Citation

  • Murray, Gregg R. & Murray, Susan M., 2020. "Following Doctors’ Advice: Explaining the Issuance of Stay-at-Home Orders Related to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) by U.S. Governors," OSF Preprints 92ay6, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:92ay6
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/92ay6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/5eb215b69ddd28000e08cf62/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/92ay6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kathleen Ferraiolo, 2017. "State Policy Activism via Direct Democracy in Response to Federal Partisan Polarization," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 47(3), pages 378-402.
    2. Macinko, J. & Silver, D., 2015. "Diffusion of impaired driving laws among US states," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 105(9), pages 1893-1900.
    3. Baum, Matthew A., 2011. "Red, Blue, and the Flu: Media Self-Selection and Partisan Gaps in Swine Flu Vaccinations," Scholarly Articles 4696292, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
    4. Jennifer M. Jensen, 2017. "Governors and Partisan Polarization in the Federal Arena," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 47(3), pages 314-341.
    5. Sellers, Mitchell Dylan, 2017. "Gubernatorial use of executive orders: unilateral action and policy adoption," Journal of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 37(3), pages 315-339, September.
    6. Maggetti, Martino & Gilardi, Fabrizio, 2016. "Problems (and solutions) in the measurement of policy diffusion mechanisms," Journal of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 36(1), pages 87-107, March.
    7. Brownson, R.C. & Chriqui, J.F. & Stamatakis, K.A., 2009. "Understanding evidence-based public health policy," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 99(9), pages 1576-1583.
    8. Susan M. Murray, 2018. "Explaining the adoption of benefit corporation laws by the US states," Journal of Financial Economic Policy, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 10(3), pages 351-368, June.
    9. Baum, Matthew A., 2011. "Red, Blue, and the Flu: Media Self-Selection and Partisan Gaps in Swine Flu Vaccinations," Working Paper Series rwp11-010, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    10. Pamela J. Clouser McCann & Charles R. Shipan & Craig Volden, 2015. "Top-Down Federalism: State Policy Responses to National Government Discussions," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 45(4), pages 495-525.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ruixia Han & Jian Xu & David Pan, 2022. "How Media Exposure, Media Trust, and Media Bias Perception Influence Public Evaluation of COVID-19 Pandemic in International Metropolises," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(7), pages 1-14, March.
    2. Shana Kushner Gadarian & Sara Wallace Goodman & Thomas B Pepinsky, 2021. "Partisanship, health behavior, and policy attitudes in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(4), pages 1-13, April.
    3. Jung Ki Kim & Eileen M Crimmins, 2020. "How does age affect personal and social reactions to COVID-19: Results from the national Understanding America Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(11), pages 1-16, November.
    4. Srinivas C. Parinandi, 2020. "Policy Inventing and Borrowing among State Legislatures," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(4), pages 852-868, October.
    5. Tae Ho Kim & Chang Sug Park & Sang-hyeok Lee & Jung Eun Kang, 2023. "Gap Analysis Between the Level of Heat Wave Adaptation Policy and Heat Wave Effects in South Korean Municipalities," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(2), pages 120-132.
    6. Rieckmann, Traci R. & Kovas, Anne E. & Cassidy, Elaine F. & McCarty, Dennis, 2011. "Employing policy and purchasing levers to increase the use of evidence-based practices in community-based substance abuse treatment settings: Reports from single state authorities," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 366-374, November.
    7. Fabrizio De Francesco & Philipp Trein, 2020. "How Does Corruption Affect the Adoption of Lobby Registers? A Comparative Analysis," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(2), pages 116-127.
    8. Yang, You-hong & Gao, Ping & Zhou, Haimei, 2023. "Understanding the evolution of China's standardization policy system," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(2).
    9. Alfred Rütten, 2012. "Evidence-based policy revisited: orientation towards the policy process and a public health policy science," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 57(3), pages 455-457, June.
    10. Kovacs, Viktoria Anna & Messing, Sven & Sandu, Petru & Nardone, Paola & Pizzi, Enrica & Hassapidou, Maria & Brukalo, Katarzyna & Tecklenburg, Ernestine & Abu-Omar, Karim, 2020. "Improving the food environment in kindergartens and schools: An overview of policies and policy opportunities in Europe," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    11. Jessica Weinkle, 2022. "An evaluation of North Carolina science advice on COVID-19 pandemic response," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-16, December.
    12. Aurel Croissant & Jale Tosun, 2016. "Introduction: Bringing Regime Types into Diffusion Studies," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 7(4), pages 531-533, November.
    13. Cyr, Pascale Renée & Jain, Vageesh & Chalkidou, Kalipso & Ottersen, Trygve & Gopinathan, Unni, 2021. "Evaluations of public health interventions produced by health technology assessment agencies: A mapping review and analysis by type and evidence content," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(8), pages 1054-1064.
    14. Johanna Catherine Maclean & Melissa Oney & Joachim Marti & Jody Sindelar, 2018. "What factors predict the passage of state‐level e‐cigarette regulations?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(5), pages 897-907, May.
    15. Shree Kumar Maharjan, 2021. "Stocktaking of local adaptation plans and initiatives in the changing political context in Nepal," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 3199-3217, March.
    16. Clark, Duncan A. & Macinko, James & Porfiri, Maurizio, 2022. "What factors drive state firearm law adoption? An application of exponential-family random graph models," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 305(C).
    17. Armin Mertens & Christine Trampusch & Florian Fastenrath & Rebecca Wangemann, 2021. "The political economy of local government financialization and the role of policy diffusion," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(2), pages 370-387, April.
    18. Masayoshi Oka, 2022. "Census-Tract-Level Median Household Income and Median Family Income Estimates: A Unidimensional Measure of Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(1), pages 1-23, December.
    19. Yongjin Choi & Ashley M. Fox, 2022. "Fact‐value framework for adjudicating public health policy debates," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 39(6), pages 820-844, November.
    20. Ken Wei Tan & Joel R. Koo & Jue Tao Lim & Alex R. Cook & Borame L. Dickens, 2021. "Importance of Geospatial Heterogeneity in Chronic Disease Burden for Policy Planning in an Urban Setting Using a Case Study of Singapore," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(9), pages 1-12, April.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:92ay6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://osf.io/preprints/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.