USC survey: COVID-19 is causing U.S. residents to change behavior

A survey by affiliate Daniel Bennett and Wändi Bruine de Bruin suggests that Americans are changing their behavior to gear up for the health and economic costs of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Amid the rise of the coronavirus pandemic, many people in the United States perceive health and economic risks and are changing their behavior. That’s according to a new survey conducted by researchers at the Center for Economic and Social Research at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and the USC Leonard D.Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics.

The results so far show that people are bracing for the health and economic fallout of the pandemic: 12% of people said there was a relatively high — greater than 25% — chance they could lose their job, while 18% of people said there was a relatively high chance they could run out of money. Of those with jobs, 59% said they would have difficulty working from home.

The study was led by Daniel Bennett of USC Dornsife and Wändi Bruine de Bruin of the USC Price School of Public Policy. Bennett and Bruine de Bruin believe it may help public health and policy leaders identify gaps in information and understand how the virus has affected everyday life.

‘The coronavirus is both a health threat and an economic threat,’ said Bennett, a research assistant professor of economics at the Center for Economic and Social Research. ‘The social distancing measures that are needed to limit transmission will also cause a lot of hardship. Many people do not feel that they can work remotely.’ Bennett is an economist who studies how people make health decisions, having previously studied the 2003 SARS epidemic.”

Source: USC survey says coronavirus is causing U.S. residents to change behavior