Human factors analysis and risk assessment during the spread of the Covid-19 epidemic: A case study of the 2019 Wuhan outbreak in China

Abstract

Since the discovery of novel coronavirus pneumonia (Covid-19) in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, it has spread to other Chinese provinces and continents in just one month, becoming a "public health emergency of international concern." The undesired behaviors of the public and patients during the Covid-19 epidemic cannot be ignored, but few scholars have studied them. In this study, we firstly adopted a qualitative analysis method based on a theoretical paradigm to to summarize the human factors in the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic, and defined the concept of "human factors of the epidemic." Then, we analyzed the distribution characteristics of "human factors of epidemic" at each stage by using statistical analysis, and constructed a human factors model of epidemic evolution. Finally, a multi-subject risk assessment model was constructed using a fuzzy Bayesian network analysis method to quantify the human factors risk in the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic. The results of the study are as follows. (1) The human factors of the COVID-19 epidemic mainly focused on five aspects, including cognitive bias, defective design, management bias, environmental defects, and intentional violations. (2) There were differences in the human factors at different stages of the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic. In the outbreak stage, human factors of the COVID-19 epidemic showed complex trends, with factors such as lack of knowledge and low awareness still prevailing on the one hand, and factors such as lack of capacity, overtly agree but covertly oppose, dereliction of duty, concealment and misreporting, lack of resources, protection defects, design defects, escape/fleeing, and public gathering on the other hand also being more prominent. (3) The risk of the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic due to undesired human factors in the subjects involved was high (p = 0.641) under conventional intervention scenarios. Risk factors such as low awareness, poor decision making, lack of resources, lack of awareness, system deficiencies, public agglomeration, inadequate protection, misreporting, and dereliction of duty had relatively large sensitivity factors and were key human factors for the spread of the epidemic in Wuhan. Finally, targeted recommendations are proposed based on the evolutionary pattern and risk level of the human factors of the COVID-19 epidemic.

Keywords:

• Covid-19 epidemic spread
• human factors
• risk assessment
• qualitative analysis
• Bayesian network analysis

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank all the participants in this study.

Authors’ contributions

Conceptualization, Yujie Wang; Data curation, Yujie Wang, Ruirui Pei; Formal analysis, Yujie Wang, Qingqing Sun; Funding acquisition, Yujie Wang, Bei Liu; Investigation, Yujie Wang, Gu Xiao, Ruirui Pei; Methodology, Yujie Wang; Project administration, Yujie Wang, Qingqing Sun; Resources, Yujie Wang, Gu Xiao, Ruirui Pei, Shuhan Yang; Software, Yujie Wang; Supervision, Yujie Wang, Shuhan Yang; Validation, Yujie Wang; Visualization, Yujie Wang; Roles/Writing – original draft, Yujie Wang, Gu Xiao, Ruirui Pei; Writing – review & editing, Yujie Wang, Qingqing Sun.

Declaration of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interests.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by the Social Science Funding of Jiangsu Province (grant No. 20GLC009), the Fellowship of China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2021M703499), the Social Science Foundation of China University of Mining and Technology (2022SK02).