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Impact of COVID-19 forecast visualizations on pandemic risk perceptions
- Source :
- Scientific Reports, Vol 12, Iss 1, Pp 1-14 (2022), Scientific reports, vol 12, iss 1
- Publication Year :
- 2022
- Publisher :
- Nature Portfolio, 2022.
-
Abstract
- People worldwide use SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) visualizations to make life and death decisions about pandemic risks. Understanding how these visualizations influence risk perceptions to improve pandemic communication is crucial. To examine how COVID-19 visualizations influence risk perception, we conducted two experiments online in October and December of 2020 (N= 2549) where we presented participants with 34 visualization techniques (available at the time of publication on the CDC’s website) of the same COVID-19 mortality data. We found that visualizing data using a cumulative scale consistently led to participants believing that they and others were at more risk than before viewing the visualizations. In contrast, visualizing the same data with a weekly incident scale led to variable changes in risk perceptions. Further, uncertainty forecast visualizations also affected risk perceptions, with visualizations showing six or more models increasing risk estimates more than the others tested. Differences between COVID-19 visualizations of the same data produce different risk perceptions, fundamentally changing viewers’ interpretation of information.
- Subjects :
- Adult
Male
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)
genetic structures
Computer science
media_common.quotation_subject
Science
New York
California
Young Adult
Text mining
Risk Factors
Perception
Environmental health
Pandemic
Humans
Pandemics
media_common
Multidisciplinary
SARS-CoV-2
business.industry
Prevention
Communication
Data Visualization
Uncertainty
COVID-19
Data science
eye diseases
Emerging Infectious Diseases
Good Health and Well Being
Medicine
Female
sense organs
Psychology
business
Forecasting
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 20452322
- Volume :
- 12
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Scientific Reports
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....40cf634d99ed8d7b2793545094a45a4c