Determinants of Compliance with COVID-19 Measures in the Asia-Pacific
The COVID-19 pandemic brought forth an onslaught of unprecedented government recommendations and regulations promoting public health measures to control the spread of SARS-CoV 2 and mitigate its consequences. A key characteristic of the COVID-19 response in the East Asia-Pacific region was the high level of compliance with the public health measures put in place. This high compliance could provide an explanation for their ability to contain the pandemic, at least in the first year of the pandemic. Our study aims to explain why residents in six jurisdictions in this region – Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand – were, to a large extent, willing to follow these measures.
Renu Singh is a Research Assistant Professor with the Division of Public Policy, a Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study Junior Fellow, and a Faculty Associate with the Institute for Emerging Market Studies at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). Dr. Singh is also a Scholar at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown and a DAAD Research Ambassador for the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst/German Academic Exchange Service. Her research interests include the relationship between political institutions, public opinion, and policy change in the context of public health and health policy. Dr. Singh has a BA in Political Science and a BS in Microbiology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, an MS in Public Policy and Administration from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and an MA and PhD in Government from Georgetown. Her research has been published by the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, BMJ Global Health, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Foreign Policy Magazine, and The Washington Post, among others.