Primary Submission Category: Health behaviors
Results from a reader impact assessment of Dear Pandemic
Authors: Malia Jones Sandra Albrecht Shoshi Aronowitz Jennifer Beam Dowd Lauren Hale Lindsey Leininger Gretchen Peterson Amanda Simanek Ashley Z. Ritter Alison Buttenheim Aparna Kumar Sarah Coles
Presenting Author: Malia Jones*
In March of 2020, an interdisciplinary volunteer collaboration Those Nerdy Girls (TNG) formed to address the emergent and widespread need for evidence-based advice in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. TNG launched the project Dear Pandemic on March 13, 2020 and since then has solicited more than 5,000 reader questions and created more than 2,000 answers in the form of short essays. TNG shares this content on social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn) in English and in Spanish, and via a newsletter and website. The total reader base across platforms is ~200,000 people. In Oct 2022, TNG fielded a survey in English to assess the impacts of the project on readers in domains including: mental health; knowledge, attitudes and behaviors related to preventive behaviors (e.g., social distancing, mask use); knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors around COVID-19 vaccination; discussing pandemic topics within readers’ own networks; and trust in Dear Pandemic compared to other information sources. TNG fielded the survey in two samples: a random sample of 5,000 newsletter subscribers (~50% of all subscribers), and an open link posted across the project’s social media sites. The newsletter sample yielded a response rate of 20% (n=1,011). The open link yielded 970 responses. The vast majority of respondents were women with modal age was 35-44 years. Most respondents identified as slightly- to very liberal, but 1 in 5 were moderate or slightly- to very conservative. Results show that overall, reading Dear Pandemic was very positive for respondents’ mental health and had positive impacts on their knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors around vaccinations and other protective behaviors. Trust in Dear Pandemic’s content was parallel that of WHO and higher than trust in CDC. In this presentation, we will describe the demographic profile of respondents, quantify the impacts of Dear Pandemic as reported by readers, and reflect on lessons learned from the project.