Emotional Responses to COVID-19 Stressors Increase Information Avoidance about an Important Unrelated Health Threat

Authors

• Christopher Gustafson, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
• Kate Brooks, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow
• Syed Imran Ali Meerza, Arkansas Tech University
• Amalia Yiannaka, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

5-23-2023

Citation

Gustafson CR, Brooks KR, Meerza SIA, Yiannaka A (2023) Emotional responses to COVID-19 stressors increase information avoidance about an important unrelated health threat. PLoS ONE 18(9): e0286712. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0286712

Comments

Open access.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic, like other crises, has had direct and indirect impacts on individuals, many of which have been negative. While a large body of research has examined the impacts of COVID-19 on people’s lives, there is little evidence about how COVID-19 affects decision-making broadly. Emotional responses to COVID-19-related stressors, such as illness and income loss, provide a pathway for these stressors to affect decision-making. In this study, we examine linkages between exposure to COVID-19-related stressors—focusing on temporally specific local case counts and loss of income due to the pandemic—and decisions to access information about antimicrobial resistance (AMR), another critically important health issue. COVID-19 constitutes a natural experiment in that people’s exposure to stressors does not result from those individuals’ current decisions. Using a nationally representative survey with 1223 respondents in December 2020, we linked the temporally specific COVID-19 cases and income loss experienced by participants to an increased likelihood of feeling hopeless. Higher feelings of hopelessness led to a higher probability of avoiding information about AMR. A mediation analysis confirms that emotional responses to COVID-19 stressors significantly increase information avoidance about an unrelated, but important health issue. Our results suggest that large-scale crises, like COVID-19 and climate change, may diminish action on other important health issues facing humanity.