Even before masks and social distancing, the PIE Center recognized potential impacts of COVID-19 and decided to take action with a nationwide survey series that would explore the public’s knowledge, response and concerns regarding the global pandemic.
“By late February, we began to see that COVID-19 was going to impact the U.S.,” said PIE Center director Ricky Telg. “We just didn’t know how much it would end up impacting our country. I called all of the PIE Center faculty and staff together to discuss what we could do, and from this initial three-hour meeting, we created a plan for a national survey and outreach effort.”
The PIE Center collected its first survey related to COVID-19 between March 12-16, which also proved to be a week of many milestones for the United States. During this week, public schools began closing throughout the country, many universities announced the transition to an online teaching format, a national state of emergency was declared as cases were reported in all 50 states and COVID-19 was officially declared a global pandemic.
“It was important for us to collect data as this crisis emerged, so we could measure it from the beginning and document regularly to understand longitudinal impacts,” said Lauri Baker, an associate professor in UF’s department of agricultural education and communication.”
Baker, also co-founder of the Center for Rural Enterprise Engagement, led the PIE Center’s efforts in developing and collecting the COVID-19 survey.
Unsurprisingly, the survey revealed about two-thirds of Americans ranked COVID-19 as the No. 1 public health concern. A more unlikely finding was that participants were more concerned early in the pandemic about their loved ones contracting or dying from COVID-19 than they were concerned about their own health in regards to COVID-19 .
“To me, one of the most striking findings is that people are not making decisions based only on themselves, but rather what effect this could have on others, especially their loved ones,” Telg said, after the initial survey was conducted.
The PIE Center also launched a second survey on April 23 to explore how the public’s perceptions might have shifted over the past month.
“Some of our questions evolved as we learned more about the impacts of COVID-19 and how health officials were suggesting we protect ourselves,” Telg said. “For example, when we created our first survey in March, the term ‘social distancing’ wasn’t being used at all, so we didn’t know to include it in the first survey. By the time of our second survey, everyone knew what ‘social distancing’ meant, so it was definitely a term we included the second time.
After the majority of Americans were under stay-at-home orders to help slow the virus’ spread, the White House issued guidelines for reopening states on April 16. As states reopened, the White House and top public health officials were strongly encouraging Americans to practice social distancing during the time that the second survey was being collected.
“When social distancing was first being discussed as a practice, it was a completely new concept to Americans. We wanted to understand how this behavioral change requested by scientists and public health officials was perceived by the public,” Baker said. “By understanding how willing and able people were to comply with this behavior change, we are one step closer to understanding how we can adapt messaging to effectively reach people about this and other behavior changes that are advantageous for public health and understanding of science.”
Findings from the second survey revealed that an overwhelming majority of American were willing and able to comply with social distancing practices. Most Americans were avoiding travel, stopping participation in extracurricular activities and avoiding contact with strangers.
In addition to exploring new topics that emerged throughout the pandemic, the survey series included consistent questions related to the public’s understanding, trust in science and concerns for local and national preparedness that allow researchers to track how opinions related to COVID-19 may change over a period of time.
The PIE Center plans to conduct at least one more survey related to the public’s perceptions of COVID-19 and will monitor how the virus is impacting individuals and communities in order to design relevant research studies.
“The pandemic has impacted all people and businesses, including agriculture,” Telg said. “The PIE Center’s mission is to examine how people think about, form and act on opinions on complex agricultural and natural resources issues. I can think of no more important topic, right now, than investigating the impacts of COVID-19 on the general public and our agriculture and natural resources sector.”
To learn more about the survey series and findings from the studies, click here.
This story was part of the 2019-2020 Annual Report. Click the button below to read other stories included in the report.
