International Research on Risk Perception in the Control of Emerging Infectious Diseases

To control new infectious diseases, such as SARS or avian flu, the identification of the organisms, the infectivity, development of vaccines and therapies, contact tracing, isolation and screening are all of great importance. Many of these issues are partly dependent on human behaviours. For example, the success of prevention of infectivity (e.g. engaging in precautionary behaviours such as wearing masks, hand hygiene, isolation etc.), vaccination, contact tracing and population screening are all more or less dependent on whether people at risk comply with behavioural recommendations. Especially in the early phases of a possible epidemic, compliance to precautionary behaviours among the populations at risk is often the only means of prevention of a further spread of the disease. However, very little research has been conducted to explore the determinants of behavioural responses to infectious
disease outbreaks [1, 2].
A special series of the International Journal of Behavioral Medicine is dedicated to this research. This month the first three papers in this series were published ‘on line’ by the International Journal of Behavioral Medicine. Together with my co-authors Drs. Arja Aro and Jan Hendrik Richardus I wrote an introduction to the series.
On February 11, Onno de Zwart, co-director of the municipal health service of the Rotterdam area, will defend his doctoral thesis which further explored the associations between risk perceptions and emerging infectious diseases.