A Multilevel Study of Preventive Behavioral Outcomes: The Relative and Interactive Influences of Media Information Use and Neighborhood Risk Factors

This study builds a multilevel model of the influence of media information use and neighborhood risk factors on preventive behaviors. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, multilevel modeling was implemented with individual-level survey data from 2020 ( N = 995) and community-level data from 2019 and 2020 from databases ( N = 41). The predominant effects were at the individual level, including information scanning having more common significant effects on the behavioral outcomes than information seeking. Community-level crime and poverty rates also had significant effects, and four significant cross-level interactions show how community-level risk factors moderate the effects of information scanning.