ABSTRACT
Background: The policy design for eliminating health inequality from social mobility perspective has been prioritized in the sociological studies. The World Economic Forum has also developed Global Social Mobility Index taking into account the fixing of social inequality including health inequality. Unfortunately, the policy design and explanation for preventive behavior gap regarding COVID-19 from social mobility perspective has hitherto been an unexplained phenomenon in Bangladeshi context. This study, hence, evaluates the effectiveness of Health Belief Model (HBM) in explaining the preventive behavior gap index (PBGI) regarding COVID-19 in relation to Blau and Duncan’s socioeconomic status (SES) index and explores other extraneous factors. Methods: : The study follows explanatory sequential mixed-method approach. In the first phase, the study has conducted pilot test for confirmatory factor analysis. The second phase is also quantitative in nature which follows the perfectly experimental research design. In this regard, the study first used SPSS software (Windows version 25) and then converting into CSV format linked with SmartPLS 3 for developing structural equation model. In the third phase, qualitative data were collected using key informant interview to explore other extraneous factors that can explain the preventive behaviors of slum and non-slum peoples of Bangladesh regarding COVID-19. Results: : The high SES index score of non-slum people have positively significant effect on their PBGI regarding COVID-19 mediated through perception gap index ( PGI ) while the low SES index score of slum people have negatively non-significant effect on the same constructs. Conclusions: : The HBM as dysfunctional should be revisited in line with the free provision of protective equipment for understanding the health behavior of those people who live from hands to mouth.