Dr Juan Zhang involved in new study investigating adherence to COVID-19 restrictions

1 March 2021

Dr Juan Zhang is one of the co-authors of newly published qualitative interview study aimed to help understand patterns of adherence to restrictive measures imposed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In doing so, the study, led by the Bristol Medical School and involving academics from several University of Bristol departments, looks at the disproportionate impact of measures that have been introduced to reduce the spread of coronavirus on individuals from Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities.

Three categories of adherence were identified:

Caution motivated super-adherence
Risk-adapted partial-adherence
Necessity-driven partial-adherence

Decisions about adherence considered potential for exposure to the virus, ability to reduce risk through use of protective measures, and perceived importance of/need for the behaviour.

The study concluded that there needs to be a more nuanced understanding of adherence to lockdown measures, and that more evidence is required on population level risks of people adopting risk-adapted partial-adherence.

It has published in the Journal for Public Health.

Further information

Denford, S., Morton, K., Lambert, H. S., Zhang, J., Smith, L. E., James Rubin, G., Cai, S., Robin, C., Lasseter, G., Zhang, T., Hickman, M., Oliver, I. I., & Yardley, L. (2021). Understanding patterns of adherence to COVID-19 mitigation measures: A qualitative interview study. Journal of Public Health.