Numeracy and COVID-19: examining interrelationships between numeracy, health numeracy and behaviour.
R Soc Open Sci
; 9(3): 201303, 2022 Mar.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-35308625
ABSTRACT
During the COVID-19 pandemic, people across the globe have been exposed to large amounts of statistical data. Previous studies have shown that individuals' mathematical understanding of health-related information affects their attitudes and behaviours. Here, we investigate the relation between (i) basic numeracy, (ii) COVID-19 health numeracy, and (iii) COVID-19 health-related attitudes and behaviours. An online survey measuring these three variables was distributed in Canada, the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK) (n = 2032). In line with predictions, basic numeracy was positively related to COVID-19 health numeracy. However, predictions, neither basic numeracy nor COVID-19 health numeracy was related to COVID-19 health-related attitudes and behaviours (e.g. follow experts' recommendations on social distancing, wearing masks etc.). Multi-group analysis was used to investigate mean differences and differences in the strength of the correlation across countries. Results indicate there were no between-country differences in the correlations between the main constructs but there were between-country differences in latent means. Overall, results suggest that while basic numeracy is related to one's understanding of data about COVID-19, better numeracy alone is not enough to influence a population's health-related attitudes about disease severity and to increase the likelihood of following public health advice.
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Type of study:
Prognostic_studies
Language:
En
Journal:
R Soc Open Sci
Year:
2022
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Canadá