December 20, 2022
Osaka University
Keio University
Hiroshima Shudo University
A research group led by Project Professor Michio Murakami (full-time) of the Center for Infectious Disease Education and Research (CiDER), Osaka University; Professor Asako Miura (Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University, and concurrently at CiDER); Professor Kai Hiraishi (Faculty of Letters, Keio University); Mei Yamagata (a third-year doctoral student at the Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University); and Professor Daisuke Nakanishi (Faculty of Health Sciences, Hiroshima Shudo University) has, for the first time in the world, identified the characteristics of people who believe that "getting infected with COVID-19 is your own fault."
It was previously known that the proportion of people in Japan who believe that getting infected with COVID-19 is their own fault is higher than in other countries. However, the characteristics of those who hold this belief had not been studied.
In this study, the research group used survey data from August 2020 to investigate these characteristics during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results showed that the factor most strongly associated with "believing that COVID-19 infection is one's own fault" was "agreeing with government restrictions on behavior in emergencies." Furthermore, people who "believe the average Japanese person has a low probability of getting infected with COVID-19," as well as younger people and men, were more likely to think that COVID-19 infection is one's own fault, but these associations were weak. Additionally, there was no association with the respondent's residential area, the population density of their residential area, educational background, or occupation.
This research provides fundamental insights into the prejudice against infected individuals that arises among the Japanese public during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is expected to contribute to resolving issues of prejudice related to COVID-19 in the future.
The results of this research were published in the British-American scientific journal "PeerJ" on Monday, December 19, 2022, at 9:00 PM (JST).
For the full press release, please see below.