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Imprecise health beliefs and health behavior
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Resumo(s)
This paper examines belief imprecision in the context of COVID-19, when uncertainty about health outcomes was widespread. We survey a sample of young adults a few months after the onset of the pandemic. We elicit individuals’ minimum and maximum subjective probabilities of different health outcomes, and define belief imprecision as the range between these values. We document substantial heterogeneity in the degree of imprecision across respondents, which remains largely unexplained by standard demographic characteristics. To assess the behavioral impact of imprecise beliefs, we ask beliefs about future outcomes under hypothetical scenarios that feature different levels of protective behaviors. We find that individuals who expect protective behaviors to reduce not only the subjective probability of a negative health outcome, but also the degree of imprecision associated with it, behave more protectively.
Descrição
Funding Information: All authors gratefully acknowledge funding from the Economic and Social Research Council Research Centre on Micro-Social Change, United Kingdom [ES/S012486/1] and Economic and Social Research Council, United Kingdom grant \u2018Inequality in Higher Education Outcomes in the UK: Subjective Expectations, Preferences and Access to information\u2019 [ES/M008622/1]. Delavande acknowledges funding by the European Commission (Project no. 101086974). Holford acknowledges support from the National Institute for Health and Care Research Applied Research Collaboration East of England at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, United Kingdom . The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the funding organizations. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. This research has received ethical approval from the University of Essex Social Sciences Ethics Sub-Committee. Publisher Copyright: © 2025
Palavras-chave
Expectations Health decision-making Imprecise beliefs Health Policy Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being