{"doi":"10.2196/37102","title":"Prevalence of COVID-19 Mitigation Behaviors in US Adults (August-December 2020): Nationwide Household Probability Survey","abstract":"BACKGROUND: COVID-19 mitigation behaviors, such as wearing masks, maintaining social distancing, and practicing hand hygiene, have been and will remain vital to slowing the pandemic. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to describe the period prevalence of consistent mask-wearing, social distancing, and hand hygiene practices during the peak of COVID-19 incidence (August-December 2020) and just before COVID-19 vaccine availability, overall and in demographic subgroups. METHODS: We used baseline survey data from a nationwide household probability sample to generate weighted estimates of mitigation behaviors: wearing masks, maintaining social distancing, and practicing hand hygiene. Weighted logistic regression explored differences in mitigation behaviors by demographics. Latent class analysis (LCA) identified patterns in mitigation behaviors. RESULTS: Among 4654 participants, most (n=2727, 58.6%) were female, were non-Hispanic White (n=3063, 65.8%), were aged 55 years or older (n=2099, 45.1%), lived in the South (n=2275, 48.9%), lived in metropolitan areas (n=4186, 89.9%), had at least a bachelor's degree (n=2547, 54.7%), had an income of US $50,000-$99,000 (n=1445, 31%), and were privately insured (n=2734, 58.7%). The period prevalence of consistent mask wearing was 71.1% (sample-weighted 95% CI 68.8-73.3); consistent social distancing, 42.9% (95% CI 40.5-45.3); frequent handwashing, 55.0% (95% CI 52.3-57.7); and frequent hand sanitizing, 21.5% (95% CI 19.4-23.8). Mitigation behaviors were more prevalent among women, older persons, Black or Hispanic persons, those who were not college graduates, and service-oriented workers. LCA identified an optimal-mitigation class that consistently practiced all behaviors (n=2656, 67% of US adults), a low-mitigation class that inconsistently practiced all behaviors (n=771, 20.6%), and a class that had optimal masking and social distancing but a high frequency of hand hygiene (n=463, 12.4%). CONCLUSIONS: Despite a high prevalence of COVID-19 mitigation behaviors, there were likely millions who did not consistently practice these behaviors during the time of the highest COVID-19 incidence. In future infectious disease outbreak responses, public health authorities should also consider addressing disparities in mitigation practices through more targeted prevention messaging.","journal":"JMIR Public Health and Surveillance","year":2023,"id":384044,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":2,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9513,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":259648,"name":"Eric Hall","orcid":"0000-0003-0244-7458","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":274945,"name":"Aaron J. Siegler","orcid":"0000-0001-5553-7540","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1104797,"name":"Radhika Prakash-Asrani","orcid":"0000-0002-3848-6099","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":274944,"name":"Heather Bradley","orcid":"0000-0002-7667-4197","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1151333,"name":"Mansour Fahimi","orcid":"0000-0002-4979-2155","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":340413,"name":"Benjamin A. Lopman","orcid":"0000-0002-9238-0068","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":274942,"name":"Nicole Luisi","orcid":"0000-0003-4466-7141","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":334519,"name":"Kristin Nelson","orcid":"0000-0003-4728-2909","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":337855,"name":"Charles Sailey","orcid":"0000-0002-7866-4224","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":514468,"name":"Kayoko Shioda","orcid":"0000-0002-8057-8448","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":284936,"name":"Mariah Valentine-Graves","orcid":"0000-0002-2834-8602","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":254907,"name":"Patrick S. Sullivan","orcid":"0000-0002-7728-0587","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":227354,"name":"Travis Sanchez","orcid":"0000-0003-1133-4762","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":18,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:17:33.041385Z","pmid":"38055314","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}