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The Public’s Perception of the Severity and Global Impact at the Start of the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic: A Crowdsourcing-Based Cross-Sectional Analysis

Authors :
Orr Shauly
Daniel J. Gould
Gregory Stone
Source :
Journal of Medical Internet Research, Vol 22, Iss 11, p e19768 (2020), Journal of Medical Internet Research
Publication Year :
2020
Publisher :
JMIR Publications Inc., 2020.

Abstract

Background COVID-19 is a rapidly developing threat to most people in the United States and abroad. The behaviors of the public are important to understand, as they may have a tremendous impact on the course of this novel coronavirus pandemic. Objective This study intends to assess the US population’s perception and knowledge of the virus as a threat and the behaviors of the general population in response. Methods A prospective cross-sectional study was conducted with random volunteers recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk, an internet crowdsourcing service, on March 24, 2020. Results A total of 969 participants met the inclusion criteria. It was found that the perceived severity of the COVID-19 pandemic significantly differed between age groups (P Conclusions Though many participants identified COVID-19 as a threat, many failed to place themselves appropriately in the correct categories with respect to risk. This may indicate a need for additional public education for appropriately defining the risk of this novel pandemic.

Details

ISSN :
14388871
Volume :
22
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
Journal of Medical Internet Research
Accession number :
edsair.doi.dedup.....4839ceb19a0a76940ca3db6ac5cb821a