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Emerg Infect Dis
. 2024 Jul;30(7):1390-1397.
doi: 10.3201/eid3007.230932.
Engaging Communities in Emerging Infectious Disease Mitigation to Improve Public Health and Safety
Michàlle E Mor Barak, Shinyi Wu, Gil Luria, Leslie P Schnyder, Ruotong Liu, Anthony Nguyen, Charles D Kaplan
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for potent community-based tools to improve preparedness. We developed a community health-safety climate (HSC) measure to assess readiness to adopt health behaviors during a pandemic. We conducted a mixed-methods study incorporating qualitative methods (e.g., focus groups) to generate items for the measure and quantitative data from a February 2021 national survey to test reliability, multilevel construct, and predictive and nomologic validities. The 20-item HSC measure is unidimensional (Cronbach α = 0.87). All communities had strong health-safety climates but with significant differences between communities (F = 10.65; p<0.001), and HSC levels predicted readiness to adopt health-safety behaviors. HSC strength moderated relationships between HSC level and behavioral indicators; higher climate homogeneity demonstrated stronger correlations. The HSC measure can predict community readiness to adopt health-safety behaviors in communities to inform interventions before diseases spread, providing a valuable tool for public health authorities and policymakers during a pandemic.
Keywords: COVID-19; bioterrorism and preparedness; community health; global health; health behaviors; health-safety climate theory; information sources; pandemic preparedness; public health policies.
. 2024 Jul;30(7):1390-1397.
doi: 10.3201/eid3007.230932.
Engaging Communities in Emerging Infectious Disease Mitigation to Improve Public Health and Safety
Michàlle E Mor Barak, Shinyi Wu, Gil Luria, Leslie P Schnyder, Ruotong Liu, Anthony Nguyen, Charles D Kaplan
- PMID: 38916575
- DOI: 10.3201/eid3007.230932
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for potent community-based tools to improve preparedness. We developed a community health-safety climate (HSC) measure to assess readiness to adopt health behaviors during a pandemic. We conducted a mixed-methods study incorporating qualitative methods (e.g., focus groups) to generate items for the measure and quantitative data from a February 2021 national survey to test reliability, multilevel construct, and predictive and nomologic validities. The 20-item HSC measure is unidimensional (Cronbach α = 0.87). All communities had strong health-safety climates but with significant differences between communities (F = 10.65; p<0.001), and HSC levels predicted readiness to adopt health-safety behaviors. HSC strength moderated relationships between HSC level and behavioral indicators; higher climate homogeneity demonstrated stronger correlations. The HSC measure can predict community readiness to adopt health-safety behaviors in communities to inform interventions before diseases spread, providing a valuable tool for public health authorities and policymakers during a pandemic.
Keywords: COVID-19; bioterrorism and preparedness; community health; global health; health behaviors; health-safety climate theory; information sources; pandemic preparedness; public health policies.