How Professional Training and Personal Experience Moderate the Relationship Between Partisanship and Coronavirus Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behaviors Open Access

Abstract

Claiming millions of lives and posing unprecedented health, economic, and social challenges, the COVID-19 pandemic has devastated Americans with tremendous loss and reoriented their relationships to government and each other. Despite a collective lack of immunity and scientific consensus on best practices to slow transmission, the pandemic quickly became politicized, dividing Americans on public health recommendations, the proper role of government in combatting COVID-19, and the very existence of the virus itself. My work builds on previous literature connecting partisanship to risk perception, protective behaviors, and coronavirus knowledge by exploring a mechanism through which the partisan divide may be mitigated via professional training or personal experience. Using secondary data analysis of three recent surveys, I evaluate the conditionality of partisan coronavirus cue taking on knowledge about or exposure to the virus, examining healthcare workers and individuals with firsthand experience (i.e., those who had a COVID-19 scare, personally tested or live with someone who tested positive, know someone who died from the virus). Linear regression analyses indicate that partisanship is strongly predictive of coronavirus knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors with Democrats being significantly more likely than Republicans and Independents to perceive the virus as a threat, engage in protective behaviors, and have accurate information about COVID-19. Working in a healthcare delivery setting or having personal experience mitigates the effects of partisanship across these three measures. I find that those who have had to confront the virus in some capacity through personal exposure are more likely to engage in disease-mitigating behaviors and perform better on coronavirus information assessments; however, healthcare worker status itself is not necessarily predictive of increased risk perception, adoption of protective behaviors, or even correct COVID-19 knowledge. Future work is needed in order to explain the mitigated effects of partisanship in the healthcare worker cohort, although I point to differences in cue taking between healthcare workers and the general population as a potential explanation.  

Table of Contents

Introduction……………………………………………………………………….………………………………………………………1

Literature Review…………………………………………………………………………………………….…...………………….….4

             Political Polarization………………………………………………………………………….………....……………………4

             Partisanship in Public Health…………………………………………………………………………….......….………...7

             COVID-19 Partisan Divide…………………………………………………………………….…………….........….……11

Theory and Hypotheses……………………………………………………………………………………………....………………15

Data and Methods……………………………………………….………………………………………………………....………....20

             Qualtrics Questionnaire……………………………………………………………………………………….......……….20

             Kaiser Family Foundation Health Tracking Poll……………………………………………………….............…….21

             Gallup Panel……………………………………………………………………………………………………...…………...22

Methodology………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..……….….23

             Hypotheses 1a-c………………………………………………………………………………………………….....…….….24

             Hypotheses 2a-c……………………………………………………………………………………….……………....….….25

             Control Variables…………………………………………………………………………………………………….....…….26

Results…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…….….27

             Qualtrics Questionnaire…….……………………………………………………………….…….......……………….….27

                            Risk Perception……………………………………………………………………….….....………………….….27

                            Protective Behaviors……………………………………………………………………......….…………….….29

                            COVID-19 Knowledge……………………………………………………………………......….………………30

             Kaiser Family Foundation Health Tracking Poll……………………………….…………………...........….………31

                            Risk Perception……………………………………………………………………….………....…………….….31

                            COVID-19 Knowledge……………………………………………………………………….….....….…………32

             Gallup Panel………………………………………………………………………………………………..…………………33

                            Risk Perception……………………………………………………………………………………....……………33

                            Protective Behaviors…………………………………………………………………………….....……………34

Discussion………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…………………….35

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…………….40

Appendix A………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…………43

Appendix B………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….….………46

References………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…….62

Figures:

Figure 1. Percent Following Swine Flu Story Very or Fairly Closely, by Party.………..........……...................…….8

Tables:

Table 1. Hypotheses…………………………………………..........…………………………………….….....…………...……19

Table 2.1. Testing Hypotheses 1a-c………………………….........………….………………………….........………...……43

Table 2.2. Testing Hypotheses 2a-c………………………………………………………..........…….........…………...……44

Table 2.3. Control Variables……………………………………………………………………...........……......….……...……45

Table 3. Qualtrics Data: Results of Regression Analyses of Risk Perception, Protective

Behaviors, and COVID-19 Knowledge by Healthcare Worker Status…………………….................................……46

Table 4. Qualtrics Data: Results of Regression Analyses of Risk Perception, Protective

Behaviors, and COVID-19 Knowledge by Partisanship……………………....................................................……47

Table 5. Qualtrics Data: Results of Regression Analyses of Risk Perception, Protective

Behaviors, and COVID-19 Knowledge by Healthcare Worker Status Among Democrats...................................48

Table 6. Qualtrics Data: Results of Regression Analyses of Risk Perception, Protective

Behaviors, and COVID-19 Knowledge by Healthcare Worker Status Among

Republicans………………………………………………………………….............................................................……49

Table 7. Qualtrics Data: Results of Regression Analyses of Risk Perception, Protective

Behaviors, and COVID-19 Knowledge by Healthcare Worker Status Among

Independents……………………………………………………………….............................................................……50

Table 8. Qualtrics Data: Results of Regression Analyses of Risk Perception, Protective

Behaviors, and COVID-19 Knowledge by Partisanship Among Healthcare

Workers.............................................................................................................................................……51

Table 9. Qualtrics Data: Results of Regression Analyses of Risk Perception, Protective

Behaviors, and COVID-19 Knowledge by Partisanship Among Non-Healthcare

Workers.............................................................................................................................................……52

Table 10. KFF Data: Results of Regression Analyses of Risk Perception by Healthcare

Worker or Experience Status................................................................................................................……53

Table 11. KFF Data: Results of Regression Analyses of COVID-19 Knowledge by

Healthcare Worker or Experience Status...............................................................................................……54

Table 12. KFF Data: Results of Regression Analyses of Risk Perception and COVID-19

Knowledge by Partisanship.................................................................................................................……55

Table 13. KFF Data: Results of Regression Analyses of Risk Perception and COVID-19

Knowledge by Partisanship Among Healthcare Workers………...............................................................……56

Table 14. KFF Data: Results of Regression Analyses of Risk Perception and COVID-19

Knowledge by Partisanship Among Experienced……….........................................................................……57

Table 15. KFF Data: Results of Regression Analyses of Risk Perception and COVID-19

Knowledge by Partisanship Among Non-Experienced……….................................................................……58

Table 16. Gallup Data: Results of Regression Analyses of Risk Perception and Protective

Behaviors by Partisanship and Experience Status……….......................................................................……59

Table 17. Gallup Data: Results of Regression Analyses of Risk Perception and Protective

Behaviors by Partisanship Among Experienced………….......................................................................……60

Table 18. Gallup Data: Results of Regression Analyses of Risk Perception and Protective

Behaviors by Experience Status Among Republicans…........................................................................……61

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School	Emory College
Department	Political Science
Degree	B.A.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Political Science, General
Keyword	partisanship personal experience healthcare worker COVID-19 protective behaviors risk perception coronavirus politics knowledge public health party
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Abramowitz, Alan, Emory University
Committee Members	Mullis, Jeff, Emory University Penn, Elizabeth, Emory University

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