Reading global data
The study consists of three main components.
The first is an online survey, open to all and soon to be available in 40 languages. The questionnaire asks respondents to fill out answers about their health, their attitudes toward their government’s anti-coronavirus measures, their behaviour during the pandemic and more.
The researchers will also compile data from various sources on the number of cases, recoveries and deaths worldwide, as well as examine the kinds of policies being enacted by different national governments. They plan four waves of pushes for the study, which is open now, and hope to reach 100,000 respondents each time. The pushes will take place every four weeks, with the researchers making new data analyses available every two weeks.
“The idea is to merge all this data together to give us a mapping of what countries are saying people should be doing, how people are interpreting those messages and how that is translating to their actual behaviour,” says Bacon, CIHR SPOR Chair in Innovative, Patient-Oriented, Behavioural Clinical Trials.
“This study will provide us with ongoing information about how people are responding to government messages and strategies and to identify not only what is working but where,” Lavoie adds. “This is important to understand so that we can adapt as quickly as possible to develop new strategies to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The researchers also hope the data can be used to develop new strategies and measures to reduce the current pandemic both locally and across the globe.
“The overall goal is to feed the data back to governments and health authorities to help them evolve their messaging strategies to try to get more people to engage in protective behaviour,” Bacon explains.