Public acceptability of COVID-19 control measures in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia: A cross-sectional survey

  1. Teck Chuan Voo
  2. Angela Ballantyne
  3. Chirk Jenn Ng
  4. Benjamin J. Cowling
  5. Jingyi Xiao
  6. Kean Chang Phang
  7. Sharon Kaur
  8. Grazele Jenarun
  9. Vishakha Kumar
  10. Jane Mingjie Lim
  11. Zaw Myo Tun
  12. Nigel Chong Boon Wong
  13. Clarence C. Tam

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Abstract

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  1. Version published to 10.1016/j.ijid.2022.04.021
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.03.01.21252710: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementConsent: Respondents were adults aged 18 years or older in Hong Kong and Malaysia, and 21 years or older in Singapore, corresponding to the minimum age of consent in each setting.
    IRB: All analyses were performed using R version 4.0.3.12 Ethics Statement: Ethical approval for this study was obtained from the Ethics Review Committee of the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore (SSHSPH-092); Universiti Malaya Research Ethics Committee (UM.TNC2/UMREC_1129); and the Institutional Review Board of the University of Hong Kong (UW-20-095).
    RandomizationThe core questions under each scenario were the same and the two scenarios were administered to randomly selected subsets of survey participants, to allow for comparison of whether vaccine availability influences people’s perception of vaccination policies.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Our study has some potential limitations. For logistical reasons it was not possible to recruit Malaysian respondents through online panels as in the other two settings. The Malaysian sample was therefore younger relative to the general population, which may have affected the representativeness of opinions on control measures. However, re-weighting survey respondents to reflect the census distribution of demographic variables made no substantive difference to the results. It should also be noted that public perceptions of control measures are dynamic and can change over time, particularly during an epidemic. In Singapore, our survey was conducted prior to the government’s announcement that digital contact tracing data could legally be used for criminal investigations, despite earlier public assurance that data would be used solely for contact tracing.26 In its efforts to maintain trust, the Singapore government passed a bill to limit criminal investigation uses of the data to specific serious offences, and set stronger penalties for data misuse than what is set out in current public sector data protection laws. In Hong Kong, the government recently announced that residents would be able to choose which vaccine to receive from those available in order to build trust in its vaccination program.27 Such policy developments influence the public discourse around public health control measures and likely shape the public’s opinion on the use of these measures over time. This emphasi...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a protocol registration statement.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.03.01.21252710v1 on medRxiv