Preferences for COVID-19 epidemic control measures among French adults: a discrete choice experiment

Open Access

Abstract

In this stated preferences study, we describe for the first time French citizens' preferences for various epidemic control measures, to inform longer-term strategies and future epidemics. We used a discrete choice experiment in a representative sample of 908 adults in November 2020 to quantify the trade-off they were willing to make between restrictions on the social, cultural, and economic life, school closing, targeted lockdown of high-incidence areas, constraints to directly protect vulnerable persons, and reduction in the risk of hospital overload. The estimation of mixed logit models with correlated random effects shows that some trade-offs exist to avoid overload of hospitals and intensive care units. The willingness to accept restrictions was shared to a large extent across subgroups according to age, gender, education, vulnerability to the COVID-19 epidemic, and other socio-demographic or economic variables. However, individuals who feel at greater risk from COVID-19, and individuals with high confidence in the governmental management of the health and economic crisis, more easily accept all these restrictions. Policy simulations show that the scenario close to a targeted lockdown or with medically prescribed self-isolation are those satisfying the largest share of the population while achieving high gain in average welfare.