Numeracy and COVID-19: examining interrelationships between numeracy, health numeracy and behaviour

Nathan Lau (1) , Eric Wilkey (1) , Mojtaba Soltanlou (1) , Rebekka Lagacé Cusiac (1) , Lien Peters (1) , Paul Tremblay (1) , Celia Goffin (1) , Isabella Starling Alves (2) , Andrew David Ribner (3) , Clarissa Thompson (4) , Jo van Hoof (5) , Julia Bahnmueller (6) , Aymee Alvarez (1) , Elien Bellon (5) , Ilse Coolen (7) , Fanny Ollivier (8) , Daniel Ansari (1)

1 UWO - University of Western Ontario
2 University of Wisconsin-Madison
3 PITT - University of Pittsburgh
4 Kent State University
5 KU Leuven - Catholic University of Leuven = Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
6 Loughborough University
7 LaPsyDÉ - UMR 8240 - Laboratoire de psychologie du développement et de l'éducation de l'enfant
8 LP3C - EA1285 - Laboratoire de Psychologie : Cognition, Comportement, Communication

During the COVID-19 pandemic, people across the globe have been exposed to large amounts of statistical data. Previous studies have shown that individuals' mathematical understanding of health-related information affects their attitudes and behaviours. Here, we investigate the relation between (i) basic numeracy, (ii) COVID-19 health numeracy, and (iii) COVID-19 health-related attitudes and behaviours. An online survey measuring these three variables was distributed in Canada, the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK) ( n = 2032). In line with predictions, basic numeracy was positively related to COVID-19 health numeracy. However, predictions, neither basic numeracy nor COVID-19 health numeracy was related to COVID-19 health-related attitudes and behaviours (e.g. follow experts’ recommendations on social distancing, wearing masks etc.). Multi-group analysis was used to investigate mean differences and differences in the strength of the correlation across countries. Results indicate there were no between-country differences in the correlations between the main constructs but there were between-country differences in latent means. Overall, results suggest that while basic numeracy is related to one's understanding of data about COVID-19, better numeracy alone is not enough to influence a population's health-related attitudes about disease severity and to increase the likelihood of following public health advice.

Domaines: Psychologie

Nathan Lau, Eric Wilkey, Mojtaba Soltanlou, Rebekka Lagacé Cusiac, Lien Peters, et al.. Numeracy and COVID-19: examining interrelationships between numeracy, health numeracy and behaviour. Royal Society Open Science, 2022, 9 (3), pp.201303. ⟨10.1098/rsos.201303⟩. ⟨hal-03838402⟩