TY - JOUR
T1 - United but divided
T2 - policy responses and people's perceptions in the EU during the COVID-19 outbreak
AU - Sabat, Iryna
AU - Neuman-Böhme, Sebastian
AU - Varghese, Nirosha Elsem
AU - Barros, Pedro Pita
AU - Brouwer, Werner
AU - van Exel, Job
AU - Schreyögg, Jonas
AU - Stargardt, Tom
N1 - Fundig text: funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 721402, the work was supported by funding under the Excellence Strategy by the German federal and state governments , as well as by the University of Hamburg , Erasmus University Rotterdam , and Nova School of Business & Economics Lisbon – Chair BPI | “Fundação La Caixa” on Health Economics.
PY - 2020/9
Y1 - 2020/9
N2 - To understand the public sentiment toward the measures used by policymakers for COVID-19 containment, a survey among representative samples of the population in seven European countries was carried out in the first two weeks of April 2020. The study addressed people's support for containment policies, worries about COVID-19 consequences, and trust in sources of information. Citizens were overall satisfied with their government's response to the pandemic; however, the extent of approval differed across countries and policy measures. A north-south divide in public opinion was noticeable across the European states. It was particularly pronounced for intrusive policy measures, such as mobile data use for movement tracking, economic concerns, and trust in the information from the national government. Considerable differences in people's attitudes were noticed within countries, especially across individual regions and age groups. The findings suggest that the epidemic acts as a stressor, causing health and economic anxieties even in households that were not directly affected by the virus. At the same time, the burden of stress was unequally distributed across regions and age groups. Based on the data collected, we draw lessons from the containment stage and identify several insights that can facilitate the design of lockdown exit strategies and future containment policies so that a high level of compliance can be expected.
AB - To understand the public sentiment toward the measures used by policymakers for COVID-19 containment, a survey among representative samples of the population in seven European countries was carried out in the first two weeks of April 2020. The study addressed people's support for containment policies, worries about COVID-19 consequences, and trust in sources of information. Citizens were overall satisfied with their government's response to the pandemic; however, the extent of approval differed across countries and policy measures. A north-south divide in public opinion was noticeable across the European states. It was particularly pronounced for intrusive policy measures, such as mobile data use for movement tracking, economic concerns, and trust in the information from the national government. Considerable differences in people's attitudes were noticed within countries, especially across individual regions and age groups. The findings suggest that the epidemic acts as a stressor, causing health and economic anxieties even in households that were not directly affected by the virus. At the same time, the burden of stress was unequally distributed across regions and age groups. Based on the data collected, we draw lessons from the containment stage and identify several insights that can facilitate the design of lockdown exit strategies and future containment policies so that a high level of compliance can be expected.
KW - COVID-19
KW - Europe
KW - People's perceptions
KW - Public policies
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85087401847&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.healthpol.2020.06.009
DO - 10.1016/j.healthpol.2020.06.009
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85087401847
VL - 124
SP - 909
EP - 918
JO - Health policy (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
JF - Health policy (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
SN - 0168-8510
IS - 9
ER -