Publisher
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Place of Publication
Chattanooga (Tenn.)
Abstract
Across the world, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is changing the landscape of the way in which people live and behave. Practicing infection control behaviors as set forth by the CDC, WHO, and other public health organizations is imperative on college campuses around the country where population density is high and frequent interactions are practiced by students. Behavioral interventions have been documented to work in industry to reduce injury, as well as in health promotion and infection prevention; therefore, behavioral interventions are predicted to be effective in slowing the spread of COVID-19. While most studies are looking at the outcomes of contracting COVID-19, this study aims to proactively tackle the health behaviors related to the spread of the virus. Health behaviors that are of interest to this study, and will be quantified are: hand washing and sanitizing, mask wearing, mask removal procedures, and proper social distancing practices. Student observers will be reporting the prevalence of these behaviors through an application created for this study called Habitood. The more students and observers who participate in the study, the more individuals it is surmised will adjust their safety practices to combat COVID-19. This notion is one that is referred to as the observer effect and has been empirically supported in many independent studies (Alvero et al., 2008; Alvero & Austin, 2004). Overall, the goal of the study is to enable students to actively participate in slowing the spread of the virus by motivating infection control behaviors across campus.
Date
October 2020
Subject
Industrial and organizational psychology
Document Type
posters
Language
English
Rights
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Included in
APP vs COVID
Across the world, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is changing the landscape of the way in which people live and behave. Practicing infection control behaviors as set forth by the CDC, WHO, and other public health organizations is imperative on college campuses around the country where population density is high and frequent interactions are practiced by students. Behavioral interventions have been documented to work in industry to reduce injury, as well as in health promotion and infection prevention; therefore, behavioral interventions are predicted to be effective in slowing the spread of COVID-19. While most studies are looking at the outcomes of contracting COVID-19, this study aims to proactively tackle the health behaviors related to the spread of the virus. Health behaviors that are of interest to this study, and will be quantified are: hand washing and sanitizing, mask wearing, mask removal procedures, and proper social distancing practices. Student observers will be reporting the prevalence of these behaviors through an application created for this study called Habitood. The more students and observers who participate in the study, the more individuals it is surmised will adjust their safety practices to combat COVID-19. This notion is one that is referred to as the observer effect and has been empirically supported in many independent studies (Alvero et al., 2008; Alvero & Austin, 2004). Overall, the goal of the study is to enable students to actively participate in slowing the spread of the virus by motivating infection control behaviors across campus.
Department
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Dept. of Psychology