COVID Infection's Changing Perception in Public Health
A comprehensive study reveals that the perception of Covid-19 infection as a serious health concern has diminished, highlighting people's continued concern for pre-existing health issues. ()
Surprising Insights on Covid-19 Severity
Over 10,000 people from countries including Colombia, South Africa, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Vietnam, ranked the seriousness of the seven health problems such as alcoholism and drug use, HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, lung cancer and respiratory diseases caused by air pollution and smoking, and water-borne diseases like diarrhea.
In most countries, respiratory illnesses were perceived to be a more serious problem than Covid, revealed the study, published in the journal Communications Medicine.
‘In seven middle-income countries, people perceived Covid-19 to be a serious health concern, comparable to HIV/AIDS, but not as severe as other respiratory illnesses. #COVID #coronavirus ’
"An important lesson for health ministries is to not get too carried away by what media focuses on a particular point in time. It is important to avoid crowding out ordinary health services," said Dale Whittington from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.
"It's also clear that public perceptions of the seriousness of health problems can differ considerably within and across countries and population segments defined by demographics and knowledge," Whittington added. Surprisingly, in six of the seven countries, the respondents ranked waterborne diseases as the least serious health problem.
In the seventh country (South Africa), it was ranked next to last. In Africa, people felt that alcoholism and drug use were also more serious than Covid. "Our survey-based approach can be used to quickly understand how the threat of a newly emergent disease, like Covid-19, fits into the larger context of public perceptions of the seriousness of health problems," the researchers said.
Reference:
- Perceptions of the seriousness of major public health problems during the COVID-19 pandemic in seven middle-income countries - (https:www.nature.com/articles/s43856-023-00377-8)