An Open Access article published in the Health Behavior and Policy Review Journal.
The full article is available as a PDF download.

Authors:

Sarah L. Patrick, MPH, PhD Twitter
Holly C. Cormier, PhD

Objective:

In this paper, we urge health behavior and policy experts to engage in rigorous science and evaluation of the evolving natural experiment to stop or adapt to the pandemic of COVID-19.

Methods:

We conducted scientific literature, media library, and governmental website searches with key words COVID-19, policy, health behavior, and pandemic as a rapid review.

Results:

As of March 26, 2020, approximately one-third of the world’s population was under some COVID-related movement restriction. Moreover, 21 states in the United States initiated policies to stay-in-place, close businesses and schools, or create mechanisms for social distancing, with more states likely to take up these actions.

Conclusion:

As individuals and whole communities ascend Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Scale, it is important to structure health behavior and policy evaluation and research to capture the lessons learned from this worldwide natural experiment of differing choices of support and restriction of individuals, groups, occupations, and whole countries. Whereas this may be the first pandemic of this magnitude and speed in the modern world, it likely will not be the last, making it imperative that we learn from and teach as many of these lessons as possible.

Source: Health Behavior and Policy Review, Volume 7, Number 2, March 2020, pp. 165-169(5)
Publisher: Paris Scholar Publishing Ltd.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14485/HBPR.7.2.10