Measuring voluntary and policy-induced social distancing behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic.

ABSTRACT: Staying home and avoiding unnecessary contact is an important part of the effort to contain COVID-19 and limit deaths. Every state in the United States enacted policies to encourage distancing and some mandated staying home. Understanding how these policies interact with individuals' voluntary responses to the COVID-19 epidemic is a critical initial step in understanding the role of these nonpharmaceutical interventions in transmission dynamics and assessing policy impacts. We use variation in policy responses along with smart device data that measures the amount of time Americans stayed home to disentangle the extent that observed shifts in staying home behavior are induced by policy. We find evidence that stay-at-home orders and voluntary response to locally reported COVID-19 cases and d

SUBMITTER: Yan Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8076999 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature