Arbeitsbereich

Bevölkerungsdynamik und Nachhaltiges Wohlbefinden

Auf einen Blick Projekte Publikationen Team

Projekt

The COVID-19 Health Behavior Survey

Daniela Perrotta, Jessica Donzowa, Emilio Zagheni, André Grow-Böser, Emanuele Del Fava, Beatriz Sofía Gil Clavel; in Zusammenarbeit mit Jorge Cimentada (MPIDR), Francesco Rampazzo (University of Oxford, Vereinigtes Königreich von Großbritannien und Nordirland)

Ausführliche Beschreibung

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic posed unprecedented challenges for governments, families, and societies, prompting widespread nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), including stay-at-home measures, physical distancing guidelines, nonessential movement restrictions, and recommendations regarding hand hygiene and face masks use. Achieving universal adoption of public health recommendations and compliance with NPIs was critical to minimizing the burden of COVID-19, especially at a time when vaccines were not yet available. However, a key problem was a lack of data to assess people’s behavior and responses during outbreaks, which may have hindered effective communication strategies and evidence-based decision-making.

In this project, we collected primary data and leveraged alternative data sources to bridge this data gap and gain insights into people’s behavioral responses to the pandemic. At the core of the project is the COVID-19 Health Behavior Survey (CHBS), a cross-national online survey that we conducted in eight countries, namely Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The questionnaire was designed to collect key information on people’s health status, behaviors, social contacts, and attitudes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Respondent recruitment occurred via targeted Facebook advertisement campaigns. Participation in the survey was voluntary and anonymous and open to Facebook users who were at least 18 years old. The survey ran from March 13 to August 12, 2020, resulting in more than 140,000 completed questionnaires.

The development of rapid data collection with recruitment pursued via targeted social media ads, along with appropriate survey designs and statistical methods to address biases in the sample, enabled us to provide important behavioral insights during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings show, for example, that people’s reactions to the pandemic differed across demographic groups, and that the effect of NPIs on contact patterns varied substantially across countries. Women and older individuals perceived COVID-19 as a larger threat than men and younger individuals, with women being more likely to adopt a wide range of preventive behaviors (Perrotta et al, 2020). Moreover, the threat perception played a role in the uptake of preventive behaviors, such as wearing a face mask, among vulnerable segments of the population (Perrotta et al., 2021). Furthermore, our results show that social contact numbers decreased by 48%-85% across countries during the first few months of the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic periods, and declined more sharply after governments issued physical distancing guidelines than after national lockdowns were announced (Del Fava et al., 2021).

Methodologically, these data also allowed us to address broader questions in survey research. Comparing self-reported and Facebook-classified demographics, we showed that survey participant recruitment via social media ads can be effectively used for social science research if careful steps are taken to validate the data (Grow et al., 2022). We further examined how recruitment materials and visual content in Facebook ads may influence survey responses (Donzowa et al., 2025).

Compared to other studies, our data collection stands out for its timeliness, cross-national and comparative nature, and population coverage, yielding a unique dataset covering the first months of the pandemic in Europe and the United States. While the immediate urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic has passed, key questions about behavioral responses, compliance with interventions, and survey methods remain. This project demonstrates the value of using rapid, cross-national data collection approaches and digital recruitment platforms to study population behaviors during health crises. Looking ahead, building robust knowledge during both crises and periods of stability is essential, as the insights gained can inform evidence-based strategies, strengthen preparedness, and guide public health responses in future epidemics.

Schnellumfragen, deren Teilnehmer über gezielte Facebook-Werbung rekrutiert wurden, geben Aufschluss über die ersten Reaktionen der Menschen auf die COVID-19-Pandemie

© Perrotta, D., Grow, A., Rampazzo, F., Cimentada, J., Del Fava, E., Gil-Clavel, S., & Zagheni, E. (2021). Behaviours and attitudes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic: insights from a cross-national Facebook survey. EPJ data science, 10(1), 17. / Perrotta, D., Del Fava, E., & Zagheni, E. (2021). The role of vulnerability in mediating the relationship between threat perception and the use of face masks in the context of COVID-19. In Workshop Proceedings of the 15th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media.

1. The scatterplot shows the relationship between the threat of COVID-19 perceived by women (y-axis) and men (x-axis), for different types of threat, and by age groups. We observe that the threat perception is significantly higher among women than men and among older adults than younger people.
2. The heatmap shows the adoption rate of face masks in relation to the threat perceived personally (x-axis) across countries (y-axis). The threat perception serves as an indicator of differentiated behavioral responses in the population with subgroups perceiving higher threat perceptions being more likely to adopt preventive behaviors.   
3. The scatterplot shows the relationship between the threat perception to oneself by respondents with (y-axis) or without (x-axis) vulnerability, by country.  While the vulnerable groups cluster by country, from lowest threat perception in Germany to highest in the United Kingdom, we measure that the threat perception is much higher among vulnerable segments of the population. 

Publikationen

Tsai, C.-J.:

Self-protection or “othering” discrimination? How information sources link perceived threats and avoidance behaviors toward immigrants during the COVID-19 pandemic

MPIDR Working Paper WP-2026-003. (2026)    

Donzowa, J.; Perrotta, D.; Zagheni, E.:

Assessing self-selection biases in Facebook-recruited online surveys: evidence from the COVID-19 Health Behavior Survey

PLOS One 20:7, e0326884–e0326884. (2025)    

Donzowa, J.; Perrotta, D.; Zagheni, E.:

Assessing self-selection biases in online surveys: evidence from the COVID-19 Health Behavior Survey

MPIDR Working Paper WP-2023-047. (2023)    

Grow, A.; Perrotta, D.; Del Fava, E.; Cimentada, J.; Rampazzo, F.; Gil-Clavel, B. S.; Zagheni, E.; Flores, R. D.; Ventura, I.; Weber, I. G.:

Is Facebook's advertising data accurate enough for use in social science research? Insights from a cross-national online survey

Journal of the Royal Statistical Society/A 185:S2, S343–S363. (2022)    

Grow, A.; Perrotta, D.; Del Fava, E.; Cimentada, J.; Rampazzo, F.; Gil-Clavel, B. S.; Zagheni, E.; Flores, R. D.; Ventura, I.; Weber, I. G.:

How reliable is Facebook’s advertising data for use in social science research? Insights from a cross-national online survey

MPIDR Working Paper WP-2021-006. (2021)    

Liu, C. Y.; Berlin, J.; Kiti, M. C.; Del Fava, E.; Grow, A.; Zagheni, E.; Melegaro, A.; Jenness, S. M.; Omer, S. B.; Lopman, B.; Nelson, K.:

Rapid review of social contact patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic

medRxiv preprints. unpublished. (2021)    

Liu, C. Y.; Berlin, J.; Kiti, M. C.; Del Fava, E.; Grow, A.; Zagheni, E.; Melegaro, A.; Jenness, S. M.; Omer, S. B.; Lopman, B.; Nelson, K.:

Rapid review of social contact patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic

Epidemiology 32:6, 781–791. (2021)    

Perrotta, D.; Del Fava, E.; Zagheni, E.:

The role of vulnerability in mediating the relationship between threat perception and the use of face masks in the context of COVID-19

In: Workshop Proceedings of the 15th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM 2021): 7 June 2021 (virtual), 1–4. Palo Alto, CA: AAAI Press. (2021)    

Perrotta, D.; Grow, A.; Rampazzo, F.; Cimentada, J.; Del Fava, E.; Gil-Clavel, B. S.; Zagheni, E.:

Behaviours and attitudes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic: insights from a cross-national Facebook survey

EPJ Data Science 10:17, 1–13. (2021)    

Del Fava, E.; Cimentada, J.; Perrotta, D.; Grow, A.; Rampazzo, F.; Gil-Clavel, B. S.; Zagheni, E.:

The differential impact of physical distancing strategies on social contacts relevant for the spread of COVID-19

medRxiv preprints. unpublished. (2020)    

Grow, A.; Perrotta, D.; Del Fava, E.; Cimentada, J.; Rampazzo, F.; Gil-Clavel, B. S.; Zagheni, E.:

Addressing public health emergencies via Facebook surveys: advantages, challenges, and practical considerations

SocArXiv papers. unpublished. (2020)    

Grow, A.; Perrotta, D.; Del Fava, E.; Cimentada, J.; Rampazzo, F.; Gil-Clavel, B. S.; Zagheni, E.:

Addressing public health emergencies via Facebook surveys: advantages, challenges, and practical considerations

Journal of Medical Internet Research 22:12, e20653–e20653. (2020)    

Klüsener, S.; Schneider, R.; Rosenbaum-Feldbrügge, M.; Dudel, C.; Loichinger, E.; Sander, N.; Backhaus, A.; Del Fava, E.; Esins, J.; Fischer, M.; Grabenhenrich, L.; Grigoriev, P.; Grow, A.; Hilton, J. D.; Koller, B.; Myrskylä, M.; Scalone, F.; Wolkewitz, M.; Zagheni, E.; Resch, M. M.:

Forecasting intensive care unit demand during the COVID-19 pandemic: a spatial age-structured microsimulation model

medRxiv preprints. unpublished. (2020)    

Perrotta, D.; Grow, A.; Rampazzo, F.; Cimentada, J.; Del Fava, E.; Gil-Clavel, B. S.; Zagheni, E.:

Behaviors and attitudes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic: insights from a cross-national Facebook survey

medRxiv preprints. unpublished. (2020)