White Paper: Open Digital Health - accelerating transparent and scalable health promotion and treatment.

In this White Paper, we outline recommendations from the perspective of health psychology and behavioural science, addressing three research gaps: (1) What methods in the health psychology research toolkit can be best used for developing and evaluating digital health tools? (2) What are the most feasible strategies to reuse digital health tools across populations and settings? (3) What are the main advantages and challenges of sharing (openly publishing) data, code, intervention content and design features of digital health tools? We provide actionable suggestions for researchers joining the continuously growing Open Digital Health movement, poised to revolutionise health psychology research and practice in the coming years. This White Paper is positioned in the current context of the COVID-19 pandemic, exploring how digital health tools have rapidly gained popularity in 2020-2022, when world-wide health promotion and treatment efforts rapidly shifted from face-to-face to remote delivery. This statement is written by the Directors of the not-for-profit Open Digital Health initiative (n = 6), Experts attending the European Health Psychology Society Synergy Expert Meeting (n = 17), and the initiative consultant, following a two-day meeting (19-20th August 2021).

Trends in educational disparities in preventive behaviours, risk perception, perceived effectiveness and trust in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany.

BACKGROUND: Educational disparities in health and health behaviours have always been relevant in public health research and are particularly challenging in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. First studies suggest that factors important for the containment of the COVID-19 pandemic, such as prevention behaviour, risk perception, perceived effectiveness of containment measures, and trust in authorities handling the pandemic, vary by educational status. This study builds on recent debate by examining trends in absolute and relative educational disparities in these factors in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. METHODS: Data stem from four waves of the GESIS Panel surveyed between March and October 2020 in Germany (15,902 observations from 4,690 individuals). Trends in absolute and relative disparities were examined for preventive behaviour, risk perception, perceived effectiveness of COVID-19 containment measures, and trust in individuals and institutions handling the COVID-19 pandemic by educational status using sex, age, residence, nationality, children under 16 living in household, family status, household size, the Big Five Inventory, and income class as control factors. Descriptive statistics as well as unadjusted and adjusted linear regression models and random effects models were performed. RESULTS: We observed an initially rising and then falling trend in preventive behaviour with consistent and significant absolute and relative disparities with a lower preventive behaviour among low educated individuals. Indication of a U-shaped trend with consistent significantly lower values among lower educated individuals was found for risk perception, whereas perceived effectiveness and trust decreased significantly over time but did not significantly vary by educational status. CONCLUSIONS: Results indicate persistent educational disparities in preventive behaviour and risk perception and a general decline in perceived effectiveness and trust in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. To address this overall downward trend and existing disparities, comprehensive and strategic management is needed to communicate the risks of the pandemic and the benefits of COVID-19 containment measures. Both must be adapted to the different needs of educational groups in particular in order to overcome gaps in preventive behaviour and risk perception by educational status.

Acceptance and adoption of protective measures during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of trust in politics and trust in science

The United Nations have described the outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) as the worst global crisis since the second world war. Behavioral protective measures, such as good hand hygiene and social distancing, may strongly affect infection and fatality rates worldwide. In two studies (total N = 962), we aimed to identify central predictors of acceptance and adoption of protective measures, including sociodemographic variables, risk perception, and trust. We found that men and younger participants show lower acceptance and adoption of protective measures, suggesting that it is crucial to develop targeted health messages for these groups. Moreover, trust in politics and trust in science emerged as important predictors for the acceptance and adoption of protective measures. These results show that maintaining and ideally strengthening trust in politics and trust in science might be central for overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)