ABSTRACT
Background: The COVID-19 global pandemic has brought far-reaching consequences on individual and societal levels. Social distancing and physical hygiene constitute effective public health measures to limit the spread of the virus. The current study investigates individual age and sex demographics, in interaction with countries’ human development index (HDI), as crucial factors influencing compliance with public health measures in a large multi-national adult lifespan sample.Methods: This report leverages data from a large-scale international collaboration (Van Bavel et al., 2020; https://psyarxiv.com/ydt95/ ) comprising 45,576 individuals from 66 countries/territories collected in Spring 2020. Participants provided self-reports of their compliance with three public health measures (i.e., spatial distancing, physical hygiene, policy support).Findings: Older age, female sex, and lower HDI were independently associated with greater compliance with public health measures. In addition, a significant three-way interaction between participant age, participant sex, and a country’s HDI revealed that compliance was lowest in young males from well-developed countries, while compliance was highest among females across all ages from less-developed countries.Interpretation: Compliance with public health measures is crucial in effectively reducing virus spread. Our findings suggest that age and sex as individual-level demographics, in tandem with HDI as a country-level predictor, affect individuals’ willingness to comply with public health measures. These results highlight the potential of data-driven tailored (i.e., towards specific demographics, countries) health campaigns and public policies in the fight against a global pandemic.Funding Statement: John Templeton Foundation; National Institute on Aging, National Institutes on Health; and Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.Declaration of Interests: All authors declare no competing interests.Ethics Approval Statement: The protocol was approved by the ethics board at the University of Kent.