Income assurances are a crucial factor in determining public compliance with self-isolation regulations during the COVID
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(2020) 9:54
ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
Income assurances are a crucial factor in determining public compliance with selfisolation regulations during the COVID-19 outbreak – cohort study in Israel Moran Bodas1,2
and Kobi Peleg1,2*
Abstract Background: The outbreak of a new Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) poses dramatic challenges to public health authorities worldwide. One measure put in place to contain the spread of the disease is self-quarantine of individuals who may have been exposed to the disease. While officials expect the public to comply with such regulation, studies suggest that a major obstacle to compliance for self-quarantine is concern over loss of income or employment due to the prolonged absence from work. Methods: A cohort study of the adult population of Israel was conducted in two time points during the COVID-19 outbreak, the last week of February and the third week of March 2020, in order to assess public attitudes. In particular, public compliance rates to self-quarantine with and without State-sponsored compensation for lost wages were assessed. Results: The results suggest that public attitudes changed as the threat increased, making people more compliant with regulations. In February 2020, compliance rate for self-quarantine dropped from 94% to less than 57% when monetary compensation for lost wages was removed; however, in March 2020 this drop became more moderate (from 96 to 71%). The multivariate logistic regression revealed that older, non-Jewish, worried over COVID-19, and trusting the Ministry of Health were more likely than their counterparts to comply with self-isolation, even when monetary compensation was not assumed. Conclusions: Despite the effects of threat on people’s obedience with regulations, this study demonstrates that providing people with assurances about their livelihood during absence from work remains an important component in compliance with public health regulations. Keywords: COVID-19, Compensation, Compliance, Self-quarantine, Attitudes, Cohort
* Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Israel National Center for Trauma & Emergency Medicine Research, The Gertner Institute for Epidemiology and Health Policy Research, Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, 5265601 Ramat-Gan, Israel 2 The Department of Emergency Management & Disaster Medicine, School of Public Health, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your
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