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
. 2022 Jul;115(7):420-421.
doi: 10.14423/SMJ.0000000000001410.

Correlation of Population Factors, Compliance with Masking and Social Distance, Vaccination, and COVID-19 Infection in Central Appalachia

J Suzanne Moore  1 , Hibah Virk  1 , Jeffrey A Summers  1
Affiliations

Correlation of Population Factors, Compliance with Masking and Social Distance, Vaccination, and COVID-19 Infection in Central Appalachia

J Suzanne Moore et al. South Med J. 2022 Jul.

Abstract

Objectives: Compliance with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) guidelines, including the use of masks and social distancing and vaccinations, has been poor. Our study examined what factors may identify those who will be more or less compliant, especially in regard to those with identified higher risk.

Methods: A telephone survey of 200 adult patients from two practices, one general internal medicine and the other rheumatology, was performed in May and June 2021. Questions included age, sex, perception of immunocompetence, smoking history, mask and social distancing compliance, COVID-19 symptoms and/or test-proven infection, and immunization status for COVID-19. Those agreeing to participate also underwent chart review for body mass index, physician-assessed immunocompetence, and diabetes mellitus.

Results: No clinical factors approached statistical significance for the prediction of compliance or noncompliance. Compliance with mask and social distancing highly correlated with vaccination and avoidance of infection, however.

Conclusions: Attempts to improve compliance cannot be focused on any of the particular groups examined in this study.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

H.V. has received compensation from East Tennessee State University. The remaining authors did not report any financial relationships or conflicts of interest.

References

    1. BalladHealth . COVID-19 scorecard. https://www.balladhealth.org/sites/default/files/2022-04/BH_COVID_19_Sco.... Accessed April 13, 2022.
    1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . COVID data tracker. https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#datatracker-home. Accessed September 1, 2021.
    1. Machingaidz S, Wiysonge CS. Understanding COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Nat Med 2021;27:1338–1339. - PubMed
    1. Shmueli L. Predicting intention to receive COVID-19 vaccine among the general population using the health belief model and the theory of planned behavior model. BMC Public Health 2021;21:804. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Pedersen M, Favero N. Social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic: who are the present and future noncompliers? Public Admin Rev 2020;80:805–814. - PMC - PubMed