Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Feb 2, 2023
Date Accepted: Apr 6, 2023
Media Consumption and COVID-related Precautionary Behaviors during the Early Pandemic: A Survey Study of Older Adults
ABSTRACT
Background:
During the COVID-19 pandemic, media sources dedicated significant time and resources to improve knowledge of COVID-19 precautionary behaviors (e.g., wearing a mask), yet little is known about whether this effort led to change, particularly in older adults.
Objective:
The goal of this study was to determine whether news and social media consumption were associated with engagement in COVID-19 precautionary behaviors.
Methods:
Data were obtained from a University of Florida-administered study conducted in May and June of 2020 (n=1,082). Linear regression models were used to assess the impact of traditional and social media use on COVID-19 precautionary behaviors. Analyses were adjusted for demographic characteristics including age, sex, marital status, and education level.
Results:
In adjusted models, reporting zero or <1 hour per day of media consumption, relative to >3 hours per day, was associated with lower engagement in COVID-19 precautionary behaviors. In addition, increasing social media use (relative to unchanged use), was associated with engagement in more COVID-19 precautionary behaviors.
Conclusions:
The results demonstrate an association between higher media consumption and greater engagement in COVID-19 precautionary behaviors. These findings suggest that media can be effectively used as a public health tool for communication of prevention strategies and best practices during future health threats.
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.