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. 2021 Oct 13;16(10):e0258484.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0258484. eCollection 2021.

Cohort profile: The UK COVID-19 Public Experiences (COPE) prospective longitudinal mixed-methods study of health and well-being during the SARSCoV2 coronavirus pandemic

Rhiannon Phillips  1 , Khadijeh Taiyari  2 , Anna Torrens-Burton  3 , Rebecca Cannings-John  2 , Denitza Williams  1 , Sarah Peddle  4 , Susan Campbell  4 , Kathryn Hughes  3 , David Gillespie  2 , Paul Sellars  1 , Bethan Pell  5 , Pauline Ashfield-Watt  6 , Ashley Akbari  7 , Catherine Heidi Seage  1 , Nick Perham  1 , Natalie Joseph-Williams  3 , Emily Harrop  8   9 , James Blaxland  1 , Fiona Wood  3 , Wouter Poortinga  10   11 , Karin Wahl-Jorgensen  9 , Delyth H James  1 , Diane Crone  1 , Emma Thomas-Jones  2 , Britt Hallingberg  1
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Cohort profile: The UK COVID-19 Public Experiences (COPE) prospective longitudinal mixed-methods study of health and well-being during the SARSCoV2 coronavirus pandemic

Rhiannon Phillips et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Public perceptions of pandemic viral threats and government policies can influence adherence to containment, delay, and mitigation policies such as physical distancing, hygienic practices, use of physical barriers, uptake of testing, contact tracing, and vaccination programs. The UK COVID-19 Public Experiences (COPE) study aims to identify determinants of health behaviour using the Capability, Opportunity, Motivation (COM-B) model using a longitudinal mixed-methods approach. Here, we provide a detailed description of the demographic and self-reported health characteristics of the COPE cohort at baseline assessment, an overview of data collected, and plans for follow-up of the cohort. The COPE baseline survey was completed by 11,113 UK adult residents (18+ years of age). Baseline data collection started on the 13th of March 2020 (10-days before the introduction of the first national COVID-19 lockdown in the UK) and finished on the 13th of April 2020. Participants were recruited via the HealthWise Wales (HWW) research registry and through social media snowballing and advertising (Facebook®, Twitter®, Instagram®). Participants were predominantly female (69%), over 50 years of age (68%), identified as white (98%), and were living with their partner (68%). A large proportion (67%) had a college/university level education, and half reported a pre-existing health condition (50%). Initial follow-up plans for the cohort included in-depth surveys at 3-months and 12-months after the first UK national lockdown to assess short and medium-term effects of the pandemic on health behaviour and subjective health and well-being. Additional consent will be sought from participants at follow-up for data linkage and surveys at 18 and 24-months after the initial UK national lockdown. A large non-random sample was recruited to the COPE cohort during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, which will enable longitudinal analysis of the determinants of health behaviour and changes in subjective health and well-being over the course of the pandemic.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Number of participants completing the COPE survey via the HealthWise Wales (HWW) and social media (SM) routes on each day of the baseline recruitment period.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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