Health Behaviors During the COVID-19 Epidemic: Perspectives From Studying International Coping and Compliance

Control of the COVID-19 pandemic requires significant changes in people’s health behaviors. We offer this multidisciplinary perspective on the extent of compliance with social distancing recommendations and on coping with these measures around the globe in the first months of the pandemic. We present descriptive data from our survey of 17,650 respondents across 18 countries and territories in June 2020. The majority of respondents worried about contracting the virus. Nearly all engaged in at least some preventive behaviors, particularly handwashing, mask wearing, and avoiding social events. Most reported that it would be difficult to continue these behaviors for more than a few months, and about half reported feeling more anxious since the start of the pandemic. Commonly reported coping behaviors included news consumption, watching television, and sleeping. Our cross-national study highlights areas for developing and implementing health behavior interventions in the global fight to stop the spread of COVID-19.

The role of COVID-19 fears and related behaviors in understanding daily adolescent health behaviors during the pandemic

We examined the prospective associations of COVID-19 fears and behavior, and daily physical activity and dysregulated eating. Adolescents ( N = 31) aged 11–17 completed selected subscales of the Fear of Illness and Virus Evaluation and completed a 7-day health behavior diary. Greater fear of contamination was associated with lower daily physical activity. In contrast, greater COVID-19 precautionary behavior was associated with greater daily physical activity. COVID-19 fears and precautionary behaviors have differential associations with health promoting behavior engagement. Future studies should explore the mechanisms underlying these links to guide adaptation of health behavior interventions for this unique cohort.

Theoretical Considerations for Communication Campaigns to Address Vaccine Hesitancy

Vaccine hesitancy, declared one of the top-10 public health threats in 2019, has become a high priority for public health professionals. Health communication campaigns have the potential to be an effective component of health behavior interventions, including those to promote vaccination. There is limited research examining the effects of theory-based health communications campaigns focused on vaccine hesitancy. Communication campaigns that use stage-matched theoretical constructs as the basis for messages are more likely to be successful in encouraging vaccine uptake by organizing behavioral intent to vaccinate along each stage and identifying which theoretical constructs are most relevant to where individuals are in the behavior change process. This article focuses on the underlying factors affecting adult decisions to get vaccinated and proposes a model through which to segment populations and determine appropriate theory-based communication campaigns to address vaccine hesitancy.

Orientaciones para la comunidad científica sobre el diseño, implementación y evaluación de intervenciones escolares sobre promoción de comportamientos saludables (Guidelines for the scientific community on the design, implementation, and evaluation of school-based interventions for promoting healthy behaviours)

Despite the benefits of adopting a healthy lifestyle, a large percentage of young people do not meet the established recommendations for these health-related behaviors. Developing multiple health behavior interventions are, therefore, required. Although school has been considered an ideal setting to promote healthy lifestyles in children and adolescents, most school-based interventions reported small or non-significant effects, diminishing over time. Multilevel, multicomponent, and multiple behavior school programs have been identified as the most promising approaches for improving health-related behaviors. However, due to the great complexity in its application, there are numerous difficulties and challenges in its implementation and sustainability. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to provide eight methodological guidelines and/or reflections for the scientific community to improve the design, implementation, and evaluation of school-based interventions for promoting health-related behaviors. All of them are supported by the research literature and also by the experience developing school-based intervention programs. We hope that this manuscript provide to the scientific community clear and precise indications of how this type of intervention should be addressed in order to maximize the effectiveness of school health interventions.

Differences in adolescent activity and dietary behaviors across home, school, and other locations warrant location-specific intervention approaches

Background Investigation of physical activity and dietary behaviors across locations can inform “setting-specific” health behavior interventions and improve understanding of contextual vulnerabilities to poor health. This study examined how physical activity, sedentary time, and dietary behaviors differed across home, school, and other locations in young adolescents. Methods Participants were adolescents aged 12–16 years from the Baltimore-Washington, DC and the Seattle areas from a larger cross-sectional study. Participants (n = 472) wore an accelerometer and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) tracker (Mean days = 5.12, SD = 1.62) to collect location-based physical activity and sedentary data. Participants (n = 789) completed 24-h dietary recalls to assess dietary behaviors and eating locations. Spatial analyses were performed to classify daily physical activity, sedentary time patterns, and dietary behaviors by location, categorized as home, school, and “other” locations. Results Adolescents were least physically active at home (2.5 min/hour of wear time) and school (2.9 min/hour of wear time) compared to “other” locations (5.9 min/hour of wear time). Participants spent a slightly greater proportion of wear time in sedentary time when at school (41 min/hour of wear time) than at home (39 min/hour of wear time), and time in bouts lasting ≥30 min (10 min/hour of wear time) and mean sedentary bout duration (5 min) were highest at school. About 61% of daily energy intake occurred at home, 25% at school, and 14% at “other” locations. Proportionately to energy intake, daily added sugar intake (5 g/100 kcal), fruits and vegetables (0.16 servings/100 kcal), high calorie beverages (0.09 beverages/100 kcal), whole grains (0.04 servings/100 kcal), grams of fiber (0.65 g/100 kcal), and calories of fat (33 kcal/100 kcal) and saturated fat (12 kcal/100 kcal) consumed were nutritionally least favorable at “other” locations. Daily sweet and savory snacks consumed was highest at school (0.14 snacks/100 kcal). Conclusions Adolescents’ health behaviors differed based on the location/environment they were in. Although dietary behaviors were generally more favorable in the home and school locations, physical activity was generally low and sedentary time was higher in these locations. Health behavior interventions that address the multiple locations in which adolescents spend time and use location-specific behavior change strategies should be explored to optimize health behaviors in each location.