Risk compensation (Peltzman’s effect) during the COVID-19 pandemic: A narrative review

Year 2024, Volume: 22 Issue: 3, 317 - 326, 11.12.2024

Abdel-hady El-gilany , Hala Abou-elwafa

https://doi.org/10.20518/tjph.1480335

Abstract

Objective: The implementation of a safety measure can have counterproductive effects on other protective measures and people engage in risk compensatory behavior (fewer safety behaviors). It is essential to summarize different researches to better understand the dynamics of risk compensation during COVID-19 pandemic in order to develop evidence-based interventions. Mass vaccination and public use of facemasks, among others, had been widely adopted to halt COVID-19 pandemic. Given marked variability in vaccines effectiveness and the lack of evidence of facemask efficiency in preventing spread of infection, all preventive measures should be used as a single package. People might feel false sense of safety when engaging in any of these COVID-prevention behaviors, as predicted by risk compensation theory. this review aims to address the ongoing debate about risk compensation during COVID-19 pandemic; to summarize the findings of previous studies about it; and to provide new evidence base of the effects of a specific preventive measure on the other measures.

Methods: A structured search on PubMed and Google Scholar on January 8, 2024 for ever published articles in English using keywords in different combinations (“Peltzman effect” OR ‘risk compensation’ OR ‘risk homeostasis’) AND (‘COVID19’ OR ‘COVID-19’ OR ‘covid19’ OR ‘covid-19’ OR ‘SARS CoV2’ OR ‘SARSCoV-2’ OR‘SARS-CoV-2’ OR ‘SARS-COV2’) AND (‘face mask’ OR ‘face cover’) AND (“distancing” OR social distancing”) AND (“Vaccines’ OR “Vaccination”) AND (‘hand hygiene’) AND (‘Sanitizers’). The search included various study designs including both observational and experimental studies.

Results: Studies showed conflicting results and no definite conclusion can be drawn about the risk compensation during COVID-19 pandemic.  

Conclusion: Current literature failed to provide a solid evidence of risk compensation during the current pandemic. More community-based intervention studies are needed to provide solid bases for future pandemics.

Keywords

Peltzman Effect, Risk Compensation, Risk Homeostasis, COVID-19

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