From Cara Murez
HealthDay reporter
WEDNESDAY, April 28, 2021 (HealthDay News) – Most young people want to protect others from COVID-19. According to surveys of 14-24 year olds, focusing on this message may be effective.
“Public health campaigns should target young people’s desire to protect others and not cause it to spread,” said Dr. Kao-Ping Chua, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
Chua is the lead author of a report in the May issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health that analyzed data from MyVoice, a national survey of young people. It enables open answers to questions sent to a national sample of young people. The data comes from several SMS surveys conducted in 2020.
About 86% of young people said they were moderately or very concerned about the spread of COVID.
89 percent of respondents said they wore masks or other face covering all or most of the time. The most common reason was that they weren’t going to spread the coronavirus.
Almost 20% said they made exceptions when they were around people they considered close contacts or part of their “pod”. About 16% based their mask-wearing behavior on social cues, including whether they could trust the people they were with to be careful about limiting their exposure.
“By and large, teenagers thought they were doing the right thing and following face-covering guidelines, even if they made exceptions. At the time of data collection, teenagers were engaged and concerned about their impact on others and, overall, wanted to do their part,” First author Melissa DeJonckheere, an assistant professor of family medicine, said in a university press release.
However, the researchers said that young people may not be highly motivated to get a vaccine to protect themselves. Therefore, a message like “Get a vaccine to protect your grandparents” may be more effective.
Nationwide, teenagers and young adults are now making up an increasing proportion of COVID-19 cases. People aged 16 and over can now be vaccinated.
Other recent MyVoice articles found that a similar percentage of teens reported using social distancing rules but made exceptions for close contacts. In some situations, young people appeared to have misinterpreted the public health guidelines.
More information
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more information on COVID-19.
Source: Michigan Medicine – University of Michigan, press release, April 23, 2021
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