The role of ingroup assortative sociality in the COVID-19 pandemic: A multilevel analysis of google trends data in the United States.

ABSTRACT: This study tested how family ties and religiosity, two extended elements of ingroup assortative sociality, would predict group-level COVID-19 severity in the U.S. and how COVID-19 threat would predict ingroup assortative sociality at a weekly level. Multilevel models which analyzed the state-level archival (e.g., religious participation) and Google trends data (e.g., marriage for family ties; prayer for religiosity) on ingroup assortative sociality showed that religious search volume (from 2004 to 2019) significantly and negatively predicted COVID-19 severity (i.e., shorter time delay of first documented cases, shorter overall doubling times, higher reproductive ratio and higher case fatality ratio) across states (Study 1a) and counties (Study 1b) while search volume for family ties only s

SUBMITTER: Ma MZ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9754620 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature