Perceived Severity of COVID-19 in a Longitudinal Study in Detroit, Michigan

To slow down the spread of SARS-CoV-2, many countries have instituted preventive approaches (masks, social distancing) as well as the distribution of vaccines. Adherence to these preventive measures is crucial to the success of controlling the pandemic but decreased perceptions of disease severity could limit adherence. The aim of our study was to observe changes in perceived personal severity and perceived community severity; the study also explored their predictors.

In a longitudinal study from an address-based probability survey in Detroit, we asked participants to rate their perceived severity of COVID-19 for themselves and for their community. In our analysis, 746 participants were queried across 5 waves of the Detroit Metro Area Communities Study surveys from March 31 to October 27 in 2020. We tested for trends in changes of self-reported perceived severity for themselves and for their community; we assessed the effects of different predictors of the two severities through mixed effects logistic regression models.

Our results highlight that the overall levels of perceived community and personal severity were decreasing over time even though both severities were fluctuating with rising confirmed case counts. Compared with non-Hispanic (NH) White Detroiters, NH Black Detroiters reported a higher perceived personal severity (OR: 5.30, 95% CI: 2.97, 9.47) but both groups reported similar levels of perceived community severity. We found steeper declines in perceived severity in NH White than NH Black Detroiters over time; the impact of education and income on perceived severity was attenuated in NH Black Detroiters compared with NH White Detroiters.

Our findings suggested that perceived severity for COVID-19 decreased through time and was affected by different factors among varied racial/ethnic groups. Future interventions to slow the pace of the pandemic should take into account perceived personal and community severities among varied ethnic/racial subgroups.