Making Sense of Risk Information amidst Uncertainty: Individuals’ Perceived Risks Associated with the COVID-19 Pandemic

Kathleen Pine, Myeong Lee, Samantha A. Whitman, Yunan Chen, Kate Henne

    Research output: Contribution to conferencePaper

    Abstract

    During a global pandemic such as COVID-19, laypeople bear a large burden of responsibility for assessing risks associated with COVID19 and taking action to manage risks in their everyday lives, yet epidemic-related information is characterized by uncertainty and ambiguity. People perceive risks based on partial, changing information. We draw on crisis informatics research to examine the multiple types of risk people perceive in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, the information sources that inform perceptions of COVID-19 risks, and the challenges that people have in getting the information they need to understand risks, using qualitative interviews with individuals across the United States. Participants describe multiple pandemic-related threats, including illness, secondary health conditions, economic, socio-behavioral, and institutional risks. We further uncover how people draw on multiple information sources from technological infrastructures, people, and spaces to inform the types of their risk perceptions, uncovering deep challenges to acquiring needed risk information.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages1-15
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2021
    Event2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Online
    Duration: 1 Jan 2021 → …

    Conference

    Conference2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    Period1/01/21 → …

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