COVID-19 Snapshot Monitoring in Canada (COSMO Canada): Monitoring Citizens’ Perceptions, Knowledge, and Behaviours relating to the Pandemic (Part II)

In light of the rapidly evolving nature of the pandemic, Canada’s response must be agile, but also evidence-based to ensure that the measures and messaging deployed are effective in their goals. It is imperative to understand how citizens perceive the risks relating to COVID-19, as well as their knowledge of the virus and of measures to protect themselves against the virus on an ongoing basis. To assist countries with this goal, the World Health Organization (WHO) has released a Behavioural Insights (BI) Tool for rapid, flexible and cost-effective monitoring of public knowledge, perceptions and behaviours. This study protocol is based on a standard protocol published by the World Health Organization (WHO)/Regional Office for Europe relating to the usage of this tool.

In a crisis such as the 2020 outbreak of the newly emerged coronavirus, it is of utmost importance to monitor public perceptions of risk, protective and preparedness behaviours, public trust, as well as knowledge and misinformation to enable government spokespeople, the media, and health organizations to implement adequate responses. The purpose of this standard protocol for national serial cross-sectional studies is to allow rapid and adaptive monitoring of these variables over time and to assess the relations between risk perceptions, knowledge and misinformation to preparedness and protective behaviour regarding COVID-19 in each country implementing this study.