Floridians more concerned about Zika virus than other states

When the mosquito-borne Zika virus scare occurred in the United States in 2016, Florida took the threat more seriously than other states, according to a new study.

Floridians were nearly twice as likely as non-Floridians to take steps to protect themselves from Zika, a study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Still, fewer than half of Floridians took preventive measures.

The study suggests that more community-level education is needed to trigger a broader response to Zika or other public health threats.

“People need to understand that by protecting themselves from the virus, they’re protecting everyone from the virus,” lead author Kenneth Winneg, managing director of survey research at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, said. “It’s not enough to have the people who are most at risk protecting themselves. You need the entire community involved.”

The study was published in the journal Risk Analysis.

Researchers said Zika poses “unprecedented challenges to public health” as the first mosquito-borne illness that causes birth defects in infants through perinatal transmission. It is also the first mosquito-borne illness to be sexually transmitted.

The study found that Floridians were more than twice as likely as non-Floridians (45 percent vs. 26 percent) to say that they had taken steps in the prior three months to protect themselves from Zika. They were also more likely than non-Floridians to know that Zika doesn’t always produce noticeable symptoms (55 percent vs. 50 percent).

“Many people may not have expected the symptoms to be personally harmful, and this might have reduced the response to Zika,” co-author Dan Romer, APPC’s research director, said. “But people need to know how important it is to get rid of standing water, put up screens, and use insect repellent – the steps necessary to combat the ability of mosquitoes to transmit the infection. You need a larger community response to prevent the spread of a new transmissible infection like Zika.”