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. 2021 Jul:61:102373.
doi: 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2021.102373. Epub 2021 May 28.

Risk perception of COVID-19: A comparative analysis of China and South Korea

Yangyang Chen  1   2 , Jiahao Feng  1 , An Chen  2 , Jae Eun Lee  3 , Longtian An  3
Affiliations

Risk perception of COVID-19: A comparative analysis of China and South Korea

Yangyang Chen et al. Int J Disaster Risk Reduct. 2021 Jul.

Abstract

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has become a pandemic and the risk perception plays an important role in self-protection and spread prevention. This study attempts to explore the intrinsic characteristic of risk perception and the spatial distribution of it, which have not been involved in previous studies. To attach this purpose, data from questionnaire conducted in China and Korea (samples of 897 respondents in China and 340 respondents in South Korea) are used to produce risk perception of COVID- 19. Results reveal four principal findings: (1) risk perception of COVID-19 can be categorized into perceived social risk and perceived risk of being infected; (2) the internal differences are most pronounced in perceived risk of being infected about oneself in China, and in perceived social risk disorder about local community in South Korea; (3) the spatial distribution of risk perception is not consistent with that of epidemic severity, for high-risk perception spread out beyond the epicenter with different performance in the two categories; and (4) among the influence factors, trust in information, familiarity with epidemic situation, and interpersonal distance from suffers in the epicenter are found to have a significant influence on different aspects of risk perception. The theoretical and practical implications of this study enrich the understanding of risk perception of epidemic, and provide specific suggestions for preventing this ongoing epidemic spread across the population.

Keywords: COVID-19; Influence factors; International comparison; Risk perception.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The comparative internal variance of risk perception in China and South Korea.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Characteristics of risk perception and its spatial distribution in China.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Characteristics of risk perception and its spatial distribution in South Korea.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
ANOVA results for risk perception in China.
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
ANOVA results for risk perception in South Korea.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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