Henrike Sternberg, Janina Steinert, and Tim Büthe recently published an article in "Health Economics". Their article presents a new approach to better understanding social distancing behavior among Germans during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, the authors distinguish between behavior in the private realm (e.g., meeting friends in one's own home) and the public realm (e.g., wearing masks or avoiding handshakes in public). The study analyzed data from more than 3000 survey participants in 2021 and finds that compliance with social distancing rules may differ between the private and the public domain and is systematically shaped by differential predictors in terms of economics preferences, institutional trust and pandemic-related threat perceptions.

The article can be found as an open-access publication on the publishers website.

The article shows research of the EU H2020-funded project PERISCOPE (Grant Agreement number 101016233). You can find a summary on the homepage of the Professorship of Global Health.