Face mask mandates and risk compensation: an analysis of mobility data during the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh

IntroductionConcerns have been raised about the potential for risk compensation in the context of mask mandates for mitigating the spread of COVID-19. However, the debate about the presence or absence of risk compensation for universal mandatory mask-wearing rules—especially in the context of COVID-19—is not settled yet.MethodsMobility is used as a proxy for risky behaviour before and after the mask mandates. Two sets of regressions are estimated to decipher (any) risk-compensating effect of mask mandate in Bangladesh. These include: (1) intervention regression analysis of daily activities at six types of locations, using pre-mask-mandate and post-mandate data; and (2) multiple regression analysis of daily new COVID-19 cases on daily mobility (lagged) to establish mobility as a valid proxy.Results(1) Statistically, mobility increased at all five non-residential locations, while home stays decreased after the mask mandate was issued; (2) daily mobility had a statistically significant association on daily new cases (with around 10 days of lag). Both significances were calculated at 95% confidence level.ConclusionCommunity mobility had increased (and stay at home decreased) after the mandatory mask-wearing rule, and given mobility is associated with increases in new COVID-19 cases, there is evidence of risk compensation effect of the mask mandate—at least partially—in Bangladesh.

Association between road safety habits and risky health behaviours in Latvian adult population

The study examined the road safety habits of the adult population of Latvia in relation to risky health behaviours (smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, no regular health check-ups at the family doctor). Data of Health Behaviour among the Latvian Adult Population for five consecutive surveys for the years 2010–2018 were analysed. Results: The use of seat belts has increased slightly – from 93.5% to 95.6% in the front seat of the vehicle, from 52.4% to 56.3% in the rear seat of the vehicle (p < 0,001). Of the 10,731 respondents, 30.8% (N = 3309; 95% CI 30.0–31.7) were daily smokers, 14.8% (N = 1593; 95% CI 14.2–15.5) had excessive alcohol consumption habits, 25.9% (N = 2779; 95% CI 25.1–26.7) had not visited their family doctor during the last year. Higher odds for seat belt use were observed among respondents without excessive alcohol consumption (OR = 2.1), non-smokers (OR = 1.5–1.8), and those, who had visited their family doctor last year (OR = 1.2–1.3). Multivariate regression analysis showed risky behaviour is an independent factor associated with road safety habits.

Knowledge, Attitude and Practices Regarding HIV and AIDS among High School Learners in South Africa

Background: Globally, millions are infected with HIV/AIDS, and more than half of them are adolescents aged between 12-25 years. Inadequate knowledge, negative attitudes, and risky practices are major barriers to HIV/AIDS prevention. This study seeks to establish the knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding HIV/AIDS among high school learners in South Africa. Methods: Data were collected from a randomly selected sample of 422 learners from two high schools using pre-tested questionnaires. Data were analysed using SPSS version 16. Results: Participants had good HIV/AIDS knowledge, attitudes, and practice levels, however, misconceptions about transmission, negative attitudes, and risky behaviour or practices were also found. Knowledge was associated with age, social status, and sources of information. Attitudes were associated with gender, age, race, social status and sources of information. Practices were associated with age, race, social class, and sources of information (p = < 0.05). Conclusion: Sex education (life orientation) in school and HIV/AIDS awareness programs in communities need to be intensified in order to rectify misconceptions, negative and discriminatory attitudes, unsafe and risky practices, as schools and healthcare workers were found to be the main source of HIV/AIDS information.

Cognitive Biases, Risk Perception, and Risky Driving Behaviour

This study evaluated the relationship between drivers’ cognitive biases (i.e., optimism bias, illusion of control) and risky driving behaviour. It also investigated the mediational role of risk perception in the relationship between cognitive biases and self-reported risky driving. The sample included 366 drivers (Mage = 39.13, SD = 13.63 years) who completed scales measuring optimism bias, illusion of control, risk perception, and risky driving behaviour, as well as demographic information. The results showed that risky driving behaviour was negatively predicted by optimism bias and positively predicted by the illusion of control. Further, risk perception negatively correlated with risky behaviour and also mediated the relation between both optimism bias and illusion of control with risky driving. The practical implications of these results for traffic safety and future research are discussed.

Effectiveness of a pre-adolescent inter-generational intervention to address HIV and obesity in South Africa, using a pretest-posttest design

Background Strengthening pre-adolescents knowledge and skills through an age- and culturally-appropriate intervention could prevent health issues later in life. Early interventions could influence the trajectory of future risky behaviour, and may influence health behaviour amongst their parents. The CIrCLE of Life Initiative was developed to address HIV and obesity. We evaluated whether the combined intervention increased knowledge, enhanced skills, and/or promoted healthy behaviour among students (9–12 years old) and their parents. Methods The study was conducted from May to December 2018. Trained educators delivered 30-min lessons over ten consecutive weeks with 537 Grade 6 students at five government-run schools, in a district, in South Africa. Schools were purposively selected based on socioeconomic status and urban-rural classification. Students communicated with parents through shared homework activities. A pretest-posttest study design was used, with a 3-month follow up. Both groups completed self-administered paper-based questionnaires. A score of subscales was used in analysis. The pretest and posttest scores were compared for students and parents using a dependent t-test. Differences in outcomes by school quintile were compared using one-way ANOVA. Results Response rates were high for both students (80.6%) and their parents (83.4%). Statistically significant differences were observed in HIV knowledge in students pretest (mean 8.04, SD 3.10) and posttest scores (mean 10.1, SD 2.70; p < 0.01), and their parents (mean 10.32, SD 2.80 vs 11.0, SD 2.50; p < 0.01). For both students and parents, pre- and post-test obesity awareness mean scores were similar, 1.93, SD 0.92 and 2.78, SD 0.57; p < 0.01, for students; and 2.47, SD 0.82 and 2.81, SD 0.54; p < 0.01, for parents. In the posttest, statistically significant changes were also observed in both groups, enhancing skills in measuring body mass index and pulse rate, and interpreting food labels. Students had a high intention to share gained knowledge with parents who had a high intention to receive it (89.4 and 89.5%, respectively). Conclusion The intervention increased knowledge about HIV and obesity-related awareness, and it enhanced skills in selected outcomes among pre-adolescents and parents. Accurate messages and enhanced communication skills could support inter-generational knowledge transfer. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04307966 retrospectively registered on 12 March 2020.

The Effect of Sex Education on Premarital Sex Among Adolescents; Literature Review

Adolescent are an age group that is vulnerable to risky behaviour, including premarital sex, because during adolescent there are various changes both physically, namely the maturation of reproductive organs, emotional changes in attitudes and behaviour as well adolescent mind-sets and social changes. Vulnerable to engage risky behaviour (premarital sex behaviour). Lack of sex education and the misconception of the concept of sex education regarding premarital sex which is misunderstood causes various negative problems is adolescent. Sex education is a preventive effort to avoid free sex to damage reproductive health and mental unpreparedness in living their days a parents. So it needs extra education so that there is no misunderstanding of the concept of sex education material. The purpose of this paper is to determine the effect of sex education on premarital sex. This literature review is sourced from the Pubmed and Google Scholar database from 2017-2021 and manually select criteria according o the inclusion and exclusion criteria using the PICOS method, which is relevant and in accordance with the title taken by the author, in this literature review the number of journals reviewed by 8 journals. The result of this literature review found that the effects of sex education on premarital sex include, the lack of knowledge about sex education causes adolescents to take premarital sexual behaviour, imperfect socialization, misunderstanding about of the concept of sex education on premarital sex, strong curiosity and some people think taboo about the concept of sex education. the conclusion in this literature review is the effect of sex education on behaviour sex, namely low knowledge, misunderstanding of the concept of sex education and imperfect socialization, not only from school but the role of the family is needed to instil sex education to reduce sexual behaviour premarital sex in adolescent.

Non-suicidal intentional ingestion of iron tablets and severe intoxication: the result of adolescent boy’s impulsive risky behaviour in the school

Acute iron poisoning is a potentially fatal intoxication in children. As the Iron preparations are commonly administered to pregnant women, lactating mothers, toddlers, it is easily available at home. So younger children are prone to consume it accidently. Although iron is a therapeutic drug in recommended dosages, excessive iron in the free state can produce toxicity by affecting multiple cellular processes by catalysing redox reactions with lipid peroxidation and free radical formation. The severity of intoxication depends on the amount of elemental iron ingested. Serious toxicity is usually associated with a dose of >40 mg/kg of elemental iron. Levels more than 100 mg/kg are almost always fatal. We report a case where a 12-year male child intentionally taken 60 tablets of iron (ferrous fumarate) at his school as a part of competition or bet to other schoolmate and presented with acute iron poisoning with hepatic encephalopathy to us. Important initial laboratory parameters were AST-4,879 U/L, Prothrombin time-60 sec and Iron level-213 microgram/dl. With timely specific management i.e., deferoxamine infusion along with all required intensive care supportive management in PICU the patient was discharged successfully. We chose to report this case to highlight the risky behaviour of adolescence who usually grows physically and emotionally earlier but their prefrontal lobes are yet immature to take proper and correct decision. Thus, impulse activity may prove fatal for them.

Tobacco Profile and Evaluation of the DS14 Scale in Patients with Coronary Syndrome

Background: the prevalence of current smokers in patients with coronary syndrome is high. This risk behaviour significantly increases the risk of cardiovascular complications. In the recommendations for the management of cardiovascular diseases, psychosocial and psychological factors are still neglected in practice. The aim of study was to verify the prevalence of tobacco use in hospitalized patients with coronary syndrome, notably to verify the type-D personality and tobacco use in the groups obtained from the evaluation of the DS14 scale. Methods: in this cross-sectional study, we addressed 100 hospitalized patients with coronary syndrome. Results: in the cohort, 48% patient were current smokers, 21% were never smokers, 24% were former smokers, 4% were occasional smokers, and 3% were quitters. Based on the evaluation of DS14, 21% of patients were classified as type-D personality and 38% as non-type-D; we identified two subtypes: the NA group at 23% and the SI group at 18%. In the group of the current smokers, 81% declared that they wanted to quit smoking, 15% of the patients were undecided, and 4% of current smokers did not want to quit. Conclusions: cardiac patients are aware that their disease is related to smoking; despite the severity of their disease, patients’ motivation to change their risky behaviour is low.

COVID-19 vaccination, risk-compensatory behaviours, and social contacts in four countries in the UK

The physiological effects of vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) are well documented, yet the behavioural effects are largely unknown. Risk compensation suggests that gains in personal safety, as a result of vaccination, are offset by increases in risky behaviour, such as socialising, commuting and working outside the home. This is potentially problematic because transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is driven by contacts, which could be amplified by vaccine-related risk compensation behaviours. Here, we show that social behaviours were overall unrelated to personal vaccination, but - adjusting for variation in mitigation policies - were responsive to the level of vaccination in the wider population: individuals in the UK were risk compensating when rates of vaccination were rising. This effect was observed across four nations of the UK, each of which varied policies autonomously.

Pilot randomised controlled trial of the Risk Acceptance Ladder (RAL) as a tool for targeting health communications

Background Improving adherence to self-protective behaviours is a public health priority. We aimed to assess the potential effectiveness and ease of use of an online version of the Risk Acceptance Ladder (RAL) in promoting help-seeking for cigarette smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, insufficient physical activity, or low fruit and vegetable consumption. Methods 843 UK adults were recruited, of whom 602 engaged in at least one risky behaviour. Those with no immediate plans to change (n = 171) completed a behaviour specific RAL. Participants were randomised to one of two conditions; a short message congruent (on-target, n = 73) or incongruent (off-target, n = 98) with their RAL response. Performance of the RAL was assessed by participants’ ability to select an applicable RAL item and reported ease of use of the RAL. Effectiveness was assessed by whether or not participants clicked a link to receive information about changing their target behaviour. Results Two thirds (68.9%, 95% CI = 61.8%-75.3%) of participants were able to select an applicable RAL item that corresponded to what they believed would need to change in order to alter their target behaviour, with 64.9% (95% CI = 57.5%-71.7%) reporting that it was easy to select one option. Compared with the off-target group, participants allocated to the on-target group had greater odds of clicking on the link to receive information (31.5% vs 19.4%; OR = 2.07, 95% CI = 1.01–4.26). Conclusion The Risk Acceptance Ladder may have utility as a tool for tailoring messages to prompt initial steps to engaging in self-protective behaviours.