New data reveals population behaviours in response to COVID-19 policies

Countries around the world continue to implement policy measures to address COVID-19.

How are people across these countries responding? And how do trends in their responses compare to trends in the number of cases that appear each day? Comparing populations’ attitudes over time in countries at different stages of the pandemic may help shed some light on these questions. 

IGHI's Big Data and Analytical Unit (BDAU) is looking at the number of COVID-19 cases per country, by day, against the percentage of population reported to be following the advised safety measures.

"I'm very excited about how this project may help us better understand the interplay between policy interventions, COVID-19 cases, and populations' behaviours,” said BDAU Director Melanie Leis. “Information sharing is critical in this challenging time and we're pleased to be contributing to the growing knowledge base of COVID-19." 

The BDAU team will update the charts as new data becomes available and expect these to become increasingly insightful over time.  

The survey questions that the team is currently following are:

• the percentage of people in each country who say they are wearing a face mask when in public places
• the percentage of people in each country who say they are improving personal hygiene (for example washing hands frequently, using hand sanitiser, etc.)
• the percentage of people in each country who say they are avoiding crowded public places

Both the countries and the questions were chosen based on survey data availability. We will add new countries and questions to the analysis as more data becomes available. COVID-19 cases per day are taken from the Johns Hopkins' coronavirus-tracking map, survey responses are taken from YouGov, and the dates of policy interventions are from Oxford's COVID-19 government response tracker.

(Please right-click on the graph and open in a new tab to expand)

GIF credit: Roberto Fernandez Crespo, Analytics Fellow, BDAU

Disclaimer
This data is for information purposes only and should not be used for medical guidance. Please refer to the World Health Organization's website for specific guidance.