COVID-19 Prevention Beliefs and Practices in College Students

Abstract

Background

As college students in the United States return to university campuses, it is important to understand their beliefs and practices on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) prevention.

Purpose

To assess beliefs and practices regarding COVID-19 prevention among college students in the United States

Methods

An online, self-administered survey was developed that collected information on COVID-19 preventative practice and beliefs. Survey responses were collected between July 13, 2020 and July 31, 2020.

Results

A total of 4,834 college students participated in the survey with a response rate of 22.9%. Compared to males, more female college students practiced COVID-19 preventative measures, including always wearing masks or face coverings in public (52% vs. 44%, p<0.001) and always or often observing social distancing (70% vs. 63%, p<0.001). In contrast to students from larger population areas, fewer college students from rural areas reported practicing prevention measures, such as always wearing a mask (24% rural v. 45% towns vs. 55% cities, p<0.001) and always social distancing (20% rural vs. 21% towns vs. 29% cities, p<0.001). Additionally, more students from rural areas have become much less worried about personally contracting COVID-19 over the last 3 months when compared to students from towns and cities (21% vs. 16% vs. 11%, p<0.001). Fewer white college students compared to other racial groups thought it was very important to wear masks (55% white vs. 76% Black vs. 82% Asian vs. 63% American Indian or Alaskan native (AIAN) & Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander (NHOPI), p<0.001) and very important to practice social distancing (29% white vs. 50% Black vs. 53% Asian vs. 36% AIAN/NHOPI, p <0.001). Compared to Non-Hispanic students, more Hispanic students thought it was very important to practice preventative measures, including wearing a mask (71% vs. 58%, p<0.001), social distancing (37% vs. 32%, p=0.017), and good hand hygiene (77% vs. 67%, p=0.013).

Conclusion

COVID-19 prevention beliefs and practices differ between sexes, the size of town one lives, race, and ethnicity. In general, female students followed Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) COVID-19 prevention guidelines more closely than male students. Students who reside in areas of larger populations have more strict COVID-19 prevention beliefs and practices than students from areas with smaller populations. Asian and Black/African American students adhered closer to CDC COVID-19 prevention guidelines and had stronger beliefs for infection prevention measures than white or AIAN/NHOPI students. Hispanic/Latino students were more stringent in COVID-19 prevention beliefs and practices than non-Hispanic/Latino students.

SciScore for 10.1101/2021.01.29.21250794: (What is this?)

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

Table 1: Rigor

Institutional Review Board Statement	IRB: All procedures performed in this study were administered with institutional review board approval. Consent: Before beginning the survey, participants were given study information and an electronic consent form.
Randomization	not detected.
Blinding	not detected.
Power Analysis	not detected.
Sex as a biological variable	not 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:

Limitations: Selection bias and response bias are potential limitations of survey studies and may exist in these results. To minimize selection bias, a study description and link to the survey was emailed to all enrolled undergraduate students at the participating university. With these procedures, our response rate was 22.9% of 21,128 undergraduate students. This is a similar to a response rate cited in a previous study among college students.18 Like most survey studies, our results may also be influenced by social desirability bias. Social desirability bias refers to the tendency of respondents to answer in a way that they believe portrays them favorably. College students who are aware that COVID-19 preventative practices are viewed as important by most governing and authoritative bodies may feel that they should respond in ways that are congruent with those views. Because anonymity of responses was stressed to participants, this effect may be less influential on our results. Students responded to the survey in the summer and before the start of the new academic year. Therefore, many may have been residing in their hometown. As mentioned previously, COVID-19 preventative practices may be influenced by students’ own city or state policies regarding COVID-19 prevention and mitigation. For example, students living in areas with city or state mask mandates would be more likely to respond that they always wear a mask in public, simply because it is required by law. Because of th...

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.
No protocol registration statement was detected.

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