Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Aug 18;21(1):1562.
doi: 10.1186/s12889-021-11600-3.

Risk perception of COVID-19 among sub-Sahara Africans: a web-based comparative survey of local and diaspora residents

Emmanuel Kwasi Abu  1 , Richard Oloruntoba  2 , Uchechukwu Levi Osuagwu  3   4 , Dipesh Bhattarai  5 , Chundung Asabe Miner  6 , Piwuna Christopher Goson  7 , Raymond Langsi  8 , Obinna Nwaeze  9 , Timothy G Chikasirimobi  10 , Godwin O Ovenseri-Ogbomo  11   12   13 , Bernadine N Ekpenyong  11   14 , Deborah Donald Charwe  15 , Khathutshelo Percy Mashige  11 , Tanko Ishaya  16 , Kingsley Emwinyore Agho  11   17
Affiliations

Risk perception of COVID-19 among sub-Sahara Africans: a web-based comparative survey of local and diaspora residents

Emmanuel Kwasi Abu et al. BMC Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: Perceived risk towards the coronavirus pandemic is key to improved compliance with public health measures to reduce the infection rates. This study investigated how Sub-Saharan Africans (SSA) living in their respective countries and those in the diaspora perceive their risk of getting infected by the COVID-19 virus as well as the associated factors.

Methods: A web-based cross-sectional survey on 1969 participants aged 18 years and above (55.1% male) was conducted between April 27th and May 17th 2020, corresponding to the mandatory lockdown in most SSA countries. The dependent variable was the perception of risk for contracting COVID-19 scores. Independent variables included demographic characteristics, and COVID-19 related knowledge and attitude scores. Univariate and multiple linear regression analyses identified the factors associated with risk perception towards COVID-19.

Results: Among the respondents, majority were living in SSA (n = 1855, 92.8%) and 143 (7.2%) in the diaspora. There was no significant difference in the mean risk perception scores between the two groups (p = 0.117), however, those aged 18-28 years had lower risk perception scores (p = 0.003) than the older respondents, while those who were employed (p = 0.040) and had higher levels of education (p < 0.001) had significantly higher risk perception scores than other respondents. After adjusting for covariates, multivariable analyses revealed that SSA residents aged 39-48 years (adjusted coefficient, β = 0.06, 95% CI [0.01, 1.19]) and health care sector workers (β = 0.61, 95% CI [0.09, 1.14]) reported a higher perceived risk of COVID-19. Knowledge and attitude scores increased as perceived risk for COVID-19 increased for both SSAs in Africa (β = 1.19, 95% CI [1.05, 1.34] for knowledge; β = 0.63, 95% CI [0.58, 0.69] for attitude) and in Diaspora (β = 1.97, 95% CI [1.16, 2.41] for knowledge; β = 0.30, 95% CI [0.02, 0.58] for attitude).

Conclusions: There is a need to promote preventive measures focusing on increasing people's knowledge about COVID-19 and encouraging positive attitudes towards the mitigation measures such as vaccines and education. Such interventions should target the younger population, less educated and non-healthcare workers.

Keywords: Africa; COVID-19; Diaspora; Knowledge; Lockdown; Pandemic; Risk perception; Sub-Sahara Africa.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Mean scores (/30) of risk perception towards COVID-19 among Sub-Saharan Africans living locally (Africa) and in the diaspora. Error bars are 95% confidence intervals of mean scores
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Paek H-J, Hove T. Risk perceptions and risk characteristics. Oxford research encyclopedia of communication. 2017.
    1. Anderson RM, Heesterbeek H, Klinkenberg D, Hollingsworth TD. How will country-based mitigation measures influence the course of the COVID-19 epidemic? Lancet. 2020;395(10228):931–934. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30567-5. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Zito RR. Bounding the “Black Swan” Probability. In: Mathematical Foundations of System Safety Engineering. Tucson: Springer Charm; 2020. p. 51–62. 10.1007/978-3-030-26241-9_3.
    1. McMaster M, Nettleton C, Tom C, Xu B, Cao C, Qiao P. Risk management: rethinking fashion supply chain management for multinational corporations in light of the COVID-19 outbreak. J Risk Financ Manage. 2020;13(8):173. doi: 10.3390/jrfm13080173. - DOI
    1. Roser M, Ritchie H, Ortiz-Ospina E, Hasell J. Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19): Our world in data; 2020. url: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus (cited on page 4). 2020.