Political partisanship and mobility restriction during the COVID-19 pandemic

• Published in: Public health (London) Vol. 187; pp. 111 - 114
• Main Authors: Hsiehchen, D., Espinoza, M., Slovic, P.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier Ltd 01-10-2020; Elsevier Science Ltd; The Royal Society for Public Health. Published by Elsevier Ltd
• Subjects: Adherence; Anonymity; Cell phones; Cellular telephones; Compliance; Coronaviridae; Coronavirus Infections - epidemiology; Coronavirus Infections - prevention & control; Coronaviruses; Correlation coefficient; Correlation coefficients; COVID-19; Cross-Sectional Studies; Disease control; Dissemination; Guideline Adherence - statistics & numerical data; Health education; Health information; Health policy; Humans; Mobile phones; Mobility; Non-pharmaceutical interventions; Pandemics; Pandemics - prevention & control; Partisanship; Pneumonia, Viral - epidemiology; Pneumonia, Viral - prevention & control; Policies; Political attitudes; Political factors; Politics; Poverty; Public health; Regression analysis; Respiratory diseases; Risk Assessment; Risk perception; Severe acute respiratory syndrome; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Short Communication; Sociopolitical factors; States; Statistical analysis; Timing; Travel - legislation & jurisprudence; United States - epidemiology; Urbanization; Viral diseases; United States; United States > US; COVID-19; Partisanship; Risk perception; Compliance; Non-pharmaceutical interventions
• ISSN: 0033-3506; 1476-5616
• DOI: 10.1016/j.puhe.2020.08.009

Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) are effective in curbing the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. All US states have adopted NPI policies, but the compliance to these measures and influence of sociopolitical factors on NPI adherence is unknown. NPI adherence may be approximated by personal mobility in a population that is tracked by anonymous mobile phone data.
This is a cross-sectional study of state-level mobility changes across the US.
State-level mobility was based on anonymous mobile phone data from multiple participating carriers collected by the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (http://www.healthdata.org). Pearson's correlation coefficient was used to examine the strength and direction of the relationship between political affiliations and mobility restriction across states. Multivariable linear regression analyses were used to assess other factors that may impact personal travel.
All states experienced a decline in personal mobility but had varying nadirs ranging from a 34% to a 69% reduction in mobility, which was not temporally related to the timing of state-level NPI measures. There was a statistically significant linear and negative correlation (r = −0.79) between the proportion of Republicans/leaning Republicans and NPI adherence across US states. The negative association between Republicans and NPI adherence was significant even when adjusting for urbanization, proportion of essential workers, population, Gini index, and poverty rates.
Political orientation affects risk perception, which may contribute to the unwillingness of some individuals to perceive the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic as a risk and to comply with NPIs. Our results highlight the importance of sociopolitical factors in disease control and emphasize the importance of bipartisan efforts in fighting the pandemic. These results may have implications for the development, dissemination, and communication of public health policies.
•The percentage of Republicans correlates with changes in state-level mobility restriction.•For every 10% increase in Republicans in a state, mobility restriction declines 8%.•The findings are not explained by urbanization, essential workers, and population size.