Giving Compass' Take:

• A Cause & Social Influence indicates that a majority of young Americans are helping to slow the spread of coronavirus by taking precautions such as social distancing, washing hands, and self-quarantining. 

• Why is it significant that young Americans, in particular, are participating in healthy behaviors during this time? How can peers encourage each other to social distance? 

• Understand how social distancing will slow the infection rate.

A majority of young Americans between the ages of 18 and 30 report taking precautions to slow the spread of coronavirus, a report from Cause & Social Influence finds.

Based on just over eleven hundred responses to a twenty-four-hour online survey, the report, Influencing Young America to Act: Special COVID-19 Research Report, Spring 2020 (6 pages, PDF), found that a majority of young Americans said they were taking precautions such as "social distancing" (77 percent), frequently washing their hands and/or using sanitizer (67 percent), and self-quarantining or -isolating (53 percent). The most common action taken by respondents to help others was "chang[ing] the way I purchase products and/or services — e.g., started or stopped eating out, attending movies, buying certain products, or supporting a brand/company" (47 percent), while 28 percent of respondents reported doing nothing.

According to the survey, traditional news sources such as television (58 percent) and online news sites (39 percent) were most frequently cited as driving awareness of the pandemic, followed by social media (39 percent), online "influencers" (15 percent), and celebrities (10 percent). Similarly, family members (26 percent) and peers and friends (22 percent) played a bigger role in influencing respondents' actions with respect to prevention than "influencers" (19 percent) or celebrities (4 percent). While eight in ten respondents believed companies or brands had "a great deal of" (40 percent) or "some" (40 percent) influence on attitudes toward COVID-19 prevention measures, fewer said they trusted corporations "a lot" (11 percent) or "some" (26 percent) "to do what's right" during the crisis.

Read the full article about young Americans are taking action during COVID-19 at Philanthropy News Digest.