Beliefs About Disabilities May Predict COVID-19 Precautions

Co-authored with Sydney Tran

Person wearing a mask entering the subway

Source: Ono Kosuki/Pexels

“Flatten the curve.” “Stop the spread.” These public health messages were specifically intended to protect people who would be most vulnerable to COVID-19, especially people with disabilities. Who was most likely to follow public health guidelines during the COVID-19 peak, and what motivated them to do so?

One key factor may be underlying assumptions about disability, specifically, medical model and social model beliefs. The medical model defines disability as a result of biological abnormalities to be cured or removed by medical professionals. On the other hand, the social model characterizes disability as a result of institutional and social barriers that create a disabling environment. Beliefs about disability have the power to influence people’s attitudes about people with disabilities and their behaviors toward people with disabilities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented many challenges for historically marginalized communities, such as people with disabilities. It is more common for people with disabilities than for the general population to have an underlying condition (e.g., weakened immune system) that increases their risk of developing more severe symptoms or complications when contracting COVID-19. Thus, it is important for the general public to engage in precautionary behaviors to protect people with disabilities.

COVID-19 precautionary behaviors refer to behaviors that prevent, limit, or protect against the spread of COVID. The World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control provided some examples, including getting the COVID-19 vaccines, wearing a mask, and practicing social distancing. Yet, little is known about what motivates people to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

In a study published last month, we surveyed 720 participants with and without disabilities about their disability model beliefs, their attitudes toward people with disabilities, their concern about disabled people contracting COVID-19, and their engagement in precautionary behaviors (i.e., mask-wearing and social distancing) to protect disabled people from contracting COVID-19. Participants were surveyed at the peak of the pandemic (January 2021 to April 2021), at a time when vaccines were not yet widely available.

We found that support for medical model beliefs was associated with less mask-wearing and less social distancing. More specifically, medical model beliefs were linked with more negative attitudes toward people with disabilities, less concerns about people with disabilities contracting COVID, and, ultimately, less precautionary behaviors. We discovered the opposite effect for social model beliefs. Social model beliefs were linked with less negative attitudes toward people with disabilities, more concerns about people with disabilities, and, ultimately, more precautionary behaviors.

It appears that disability beliefs have a strong influence on people’s attitudes and behaviors toward people with disabilities. In this study, medical model beliefs had more negative influences on attitudes and behaviors. This may be because medical model beliefs place the onus on the individual or medical professionals to treat a person’s disability. The social model places the onus on society by describing the ways in which societies create a disabling environment. In the context of COVID-19, those who support the medical model of disability may believe it is the person with a disability who is responsible for protecting themselves from contracting COVID-19. Alternatively, those whose disability beliefs align with the social model may feel a greater sense of social responsibility to protect them.

It is important to acknowledge and understand the ways in which disability beliefs can influence treatment of people with disabilities. This study demonstrated that disability beliefs could impact important health outcomes for people with disabilities.

Although there are certainly many additional factors at play, this study suggests that one promising route to promote public health behavior could be to frame disability as a social construction rather than an individual issue.

Sydney Tran, M.S., is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Psychological Science at Oregon State University and a student in Bogart's Disability and Social Interaction Lab.