Determinants of safety-focused product purchasing in the United States at the beginning of the global COVID-19 pandemic
Open accessAbstract
Public preparation for the COVID-19 pandemic was widely covered in the media due to its intensity and fast-pace. While some individuals prepared with personal safety supplies such as soap and hand sanitizer, many others did not purchase such preparatory products. There are many health and safety benefits to quick engagement and emergency preparedness in a pandemic, and it is important to identify those who conduct these behaviors. The present study examined who engaged in preparatory purchasing of safety and health care products during the early stages of the spread of COVID-19 and what stimulated this action. Results of a cross-sectional study (N = 344) indicates that possessing, or uncertainty about possessing a COVID-19 risk factor (but not differences in age, gender, race, or income), increased purchasing of preparatory health and safety products. Also, in line with past research on risk, affect, and behavior, worry mediated this relationship. Further, gender moderated the relationship between worry and purchasing, such that worry increased product purchasing for men, who were initially low in worry, but not for women. This study lends additional support to worry as a mediator between risk and safety-related behavior and has implications for understanding factors related to preparatory purchasing of health care products during pandemics.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Greater perception of the risk and severity of COVID-19, greater news monitoring, and perceived scarcity were associated with more panic buying in recent surveys.
“recent surveys assessing individuals from the US, China, India, and Pakistan found that greater perception of the risk and severity of COVID-19, greater news monitoring, and perceived scarcity were associated with more panic buying (Clemens et al., 2020; Islam et al., 2020; Oosterhoff and Palmer, 2020; Zhang and Zhou, 2021).”
From Why did all the toilet paper disappear? Distinguishing between panic buying and hoarding during COVID-19 (2021) · cites this paper as Clemens et al., 2020
The Results and Discussion report that US respondents who perceived themselves as having a COVID-19 risk factor, or were uncertain, reported more preparatory purchasing of health and safety products. The paper does not report associations of purchasing with perceived disease severity, news monitoring, or perceived scarcity. It also distinguishes self-protective preparatory purchasing from behavior characterized as panic buying. (LLM, conf=0.88)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
Garg, S., Kim, L., Whitaker, M., O’Halloran, A., Cummings, C., Holstein, R., Prill, M., Chai, S. J., Kirley, P. D., Alden, N. B., et al. (2020) · MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report · doi:10.15585/mmwr.mm6915e3 · Cited by 2,335 · see citing works
COVID-19 and African Americans
Yancy, C. W. (2020) · JAMA · doi:10.1001/jama.2020.6548 · Cited by 1,932 · see citing works
Gender differences in the utilization of health care services.
Bertakis, K. D., Azari, R. S., Helms, L., Callahan, E. J., & Robbins, J. A. (2000) · PubMed · Cited by 1,469 · see citing works
Risk perceptions and health behavior
Ferrer, R. A., & Klein, W. M. (2015) · Current Opinion in Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.copsyc.2015.03.012 · Cited by 1,034 · see citing works
Gender differences in leisure-time physical activity
Azevedo, M. R., Araújo, C. L., Reichert, F. F., Siqueira, F. V., da Silva, M. C., & Hallal, P. C. (2007) · Sozial- und Präventivmedizin · doi:10.1007/s00038-006-5062-1 · Cited by 567 · see citing works
Ruan, Q., YANG, K. Y., Wang, W., Jiang, L., & Song, J. (2020) · Intensive Care Medicine · doi:10.1007/s00134-020-06028-z · Cited by 421 · see citing works
Schiffrin, E. L., Flack, J. M., Ito, S., Muntner, P., & Webb, R. C. (2020) · American Journal of Hypertension · doi:10.1093/ajh/hpaa057 · Cited by 373 · see citing works
Emotions and preventive health behavior: Worry, regret, and influenza vaccination.
Chapman, G. B., & Coups, E. J. (2006) · Health Psychology · doi:10.1037/0278-6133.25.1.82 · Cited by 373 · see citing works
The effects of gender and age on health related behaviors
Deeks, A., Lombard, C., Michelmore, J., & Teede, H. (2009) · BMC Public Health · doi:10.1186/1471-2458-9-213 · Cited by 367 · see citing works
A questionnaire for the measurement of nonpathological worry
Tallis, F., Eysenck, M. W., & Mathews, A. (1992) · Personality and Individual Differences · doi:10.1016/0191-8869(92)90038-q · Cited by 333 · see citing works
Seock, Y.-K., & Bailey, L. R. (2008) · International Journal of Consumer Studies · doi:10.1111/j.1470-6431.2007.00647.x · Cited by 285 · see citing works
McCaul, K. D., Branstetter, A. D., Schroeder, D. M., et al. (1996) · Health Psychology · doi:10.1037/0278-6133.15.6.423 · Cited by 277 · see citing works
Social Distancing, Internet Access and Inequality
Chiou, L., & Tucker, C. E. (2020) · National Bureau of Economic Research · doi:10.3386/w26982 · Cited by 187 · see citing works
LeMasters, T. J., Madhavan, S. S., Sambamoorthi, U., & Kurian, S. (2014) · Journal of Cancer Survivorship · doi:10.1007/s11764-014-0347-5 · Cited by 130 · see citing works
Examining gender differences in the health behaviors of Canadian university students
Dawson, K. A., Schneider, M. A., Fletcher, P. C., & Bryden, P. J. (2007) · The Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health · doi:10.1177/1466424007073205 · Cited by 94 · see citing works
Breast cancer risk perceptions and breast cancer worry: what predicts what?
Lipkus, I. M., Klein, W. M. P., Skinner, C. S., & Rimer, B. K. (2005) · Journal of Risk Research · doi:10.1080/1366987042000311018 · Cited by 90 · see citing works
Gender differences in information search: implications for retailing
Barber, N., Dodd, T. H., & Velikova, N. (2009) · Journal of Consumer Marketing · doi:10.1108/07363760910988238 · Cited by 76 · see citing works
Worry about skin cancer mediates the relation of perceived cancer risk and sunscreen use
Kiviniemi, M. T., & Ellis, E. M. (2013) · Journal of Behavioral Medicine · doi:10.1007/s10865-013-9538-1 · Cited by 49 · see citing works
Zhao, X., & Nan, X. (2015) · Journal of Health Communication · doi:10.1080/10810730.2015.1033114 · Cited by 35 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Williams D.M. Rhodes R.E. Connor M.T. Affective Determinants of Health Behavior 2018 Oxford University Press
Cited by
Sorted by citations
David, J., Visvalingam, S., & Norberg, M. M. (2021) · Psychiatry Research · doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2021.114062 · Cited by 54 · see citing works
- Authors
- Clemens, K. S., Matkovic, J., Faasse, K., & Geers, A. L.
- Affiliations
- University of Toledo (US)
- UNSW Sydney (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Clemens, Kelly S.
- Venue
- Safety Science
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2020-10
- Volume
- 130
- Pages
- 104894
- ISSN
- 0925-7535 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7324098
- OpenAlex
- W3039409335
- Cited by
- 40
- References
- 19
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 18 · 2020: 2
- FWCI
- 10.57
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Safety Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Risk Perception and Management
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › COVID-19 Prevention and Impact
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › COVID-19 and Mental Health
- Keywords
- COVID-19 pandemic, disaster preparedness, worry, risk perception, gender differences, consumer behavior
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
