A major survey across seven countries has revealed how seriously people perceive the coronavirus pandemic compared to other major public health issues. The results were surprising and provided guidance for policy makers as well as health care providers.
Researchers from the Seven Environments for Development (EfD) Centers and the EfD Global Hub at the University of Gothenburg conducted extensive research into how people perceive COVID-19. This research is now bearing fruit in the form of publications. The first part is as follows. Perceptions of the severity of key public health issues during the COVID-19 pandemic in seven middle-income countries.
Respiratory diseases rank more seriously
More than 10,000 respondents cited seven health problems: alcoholism and drug use, HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, lung cancer, respiratory diseases caused by air pollution and smoking, and waterborne diseases such as diarrhea. ) were ranked according to their severity.
Their responses revealed that most countries recognize respiratory diseases as a more serious problem than COVID-19. Surprisingly, in six out of seven countries, respondents ranked waterborne diseases as the least serious health problem. In the seventh country (South Africa) he was ranked second from last. In Africa, people also felt that alcoholism and drug use were worse than COVID-19.
Do not exclude conventional medical care
These findings are important because they show that people are still concerned about the health problems they faced before the pandemic.
“The key lesson for the Department of Health is not to get too caught up in the media's focus on specific points in time. It's important to avoid crowding out regular health services,” Dale Whittington said. says.
“It is also clear that public perceptions of the seriousness of health problems can vary widely within and across countries and population segments defined by demographics and knowledge.”
EfD Director Gunnar Kählin said the study was unique in that it brought together researchers from seven countries in the Global South with leading researchers from the United States and Sweden in a joint data collection and analysis effort. Ta.
“Studies like this could put emerging phenomena like the COVID-19 pandemic into perspective with more enduring challenges facing countries in the Global South,” he says.
