Education-related inequalities in beliefs and behaviors pertaining to COVID-19 non-pharmaceutical interventions

Table 3 Associations between national averages and education-related inequality and government policies related to social distancing, mask use, public health information and testing (UMD-CTIS, June–December 2021)

Indicator	Government policy	Income group	National average		Education
Indicator	Government policy	Income group	Correlation coefficient	P-value	Correlation coefficient	P-value
Believe that social distancing and/or wearing a face mask is very or moderately effective for preventing the spread of COVID-19	Public information campaigns	Global	0.059	0.131	−0.007	0.855
		High income	0.080	0.225	−0.109	0.099
		Upper middle income	0.029	0.683	−0.022	0.753
		Low and lower middle income	0.108	0.114	−0.007	0.916
Use of mask all or most of the time in public in the past 7 days	Facial coverings	Global	0.404	0.000	0.050	0.203
		High income	0.395	0.000	−0.113	0.086
		Upper middle income	0.489	0.000	−0.323	0.000
		Low and lower middle income	0.293	0.000	−0.030	0.663
Avoided contact with other people all or most of the time	Government Stringency Index	Global	0.384	0.000	0.217	0.000
		High income	0.524	0.000
		Upper middle income	0.396	0.000	0.188	0.001
		Low and lower middle income	0.335	0.000	0.277	0.000
Tested for COVID-19 in the last 14 days	Testing policy	Global	0.269	0.000	0.085	0.031
		High income	0.534	0.000	0.030	0.652
		Upper middle income	0.162	0.021	0.082	0.244
		Low and lower middle income	0.028	0.683	0.127	0.061

Notes: Education-related inequality measured using crude (unadjusted) SII. For avoiding contact, the association between education-related inequality and Government Stringency Index for high income countries is not reported due to both positive and negative SII values making the correlation unmeaningful
Public information campaigns were scored from 0 “No COVID-19 public information campaign” to 2 “Coordinated public information campaign”. Facial coverings policies were scored from 0 “No policy” to 4 “Required outside of home at all times”. The Government Stringency Index records the strictness of ‘lockdown style’ policies that primarily restrict people’s behavior on a 0–100 scale, and is calculated using a number of containment and closure policy indicators (including school and workplace closures, cancelling public events, restrictions on gatherings, closing of public transport, stay at home requirements, and travel bans). Specific government policies were scored on an ordinal scale. Testing policies were scored from 0 “No testing policy” to 3 “Open public testing”

ISSN: 1475-9276