Social connections with COVID-19-affected areas increase compliance with mobility restrictions.

ABSTRACT: We study the role of social connections in compliance of U.S. households with mobility restrictions imposed in response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, using aggregated and anonymized Facebook data on social connections and mobile phone data for measuring social distancing at the county level. Relative to the average restriction efficacy, a county with one-SD more social connections with China and Italy-the first countries with major COVID-19 outbreaks-has a nearly 50% higher compliance with mobility restrictions. By contrast, social connections of counties with less-educated populations, a higher Trump vote share, and a higher fraction of climate change deniers show decreased compliance with mobility restrictions. Our analysis suggests that social connections are cond

SUBMITTER: Charoenwong B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10662649 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature