Health knowledge and non-pharmaceutical interventions during the Covid-19 pandemic in Africa

Anne Fitzpatrick, Sabrin Beg, Laura Derksen, Anne Karing, Jason Kerwin, Adrienne Lucas, Natalia Ordaz Reynoso and Munir Squires

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2021, vol. 190, issue C, 33-53

Abstract: Providing health information is a non-pharmaceutical intervention designed to reduce disease transmission and infection risk by encouraging behavior change. But does knowledge change behavior? We test whether coronavirus health knowledge promotes protective risk mitigation behaviors early in the Covid-19 pandemic in samples from four African countries (Ghana, Malawi, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania). Despite reputations for weak health sectors and low average levels of education, health knowledge of the symptoms and transmission mechanisms was high in all countries in the two months after the virus entered the country. Higher knowledge was associated with increased protective measures that would likely lower disease risk with one exception–knowledge was inversely correlated with social distancing. Respondents largely adhered to mask mandates and lockdowns, but continued coming into contact with others at small, informal gatherings, gatherings not affected by mandates. Knowledge alone did not reduce all risky activities, especially gatherings within other people’s homes. Even early in the pandemic, income loss or stress were commonly reported. Our results suggest that early and consistent government provision of health information likely reduced the initial severity of the pandemic in Africa but was not a panacea.

Keywords: Pandemics; Non-pharmaceutical interventions; Coronavirus; Health behaviors; Risk mitigation; Lockdowns (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I15 I18 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268121002869
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Health Knowledge and Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Africa (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:190:y:2021:i:c:p:33-53

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.06.045

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D.

More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().