COVID-19 Risk Perceptions and Precautions among the Elderly: A Study of CALD Adults in South Australia

This aim of generating this dataset was to understand the culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) older adults’ risk perceptions of COVID-19, and identify health precautions [emotional and behavioral] and emergency preparation associated with their risk perceptions and demographics. A cross-sectional survey was conducted from July 1 to December 31, 2020 in South Australia. The CALD population aged 60 years and above were approached through 11 South Australian multicultural NGOs, resulting in the completion of 155 multi-indicator surveys. The demographic characteristics and risk perception indicators were considered as explanatory variables in this study. The demographics of participants were categorized into: age [60-69 years, 70-79 years, and 80 years and above); gender [male and female]; education [no formal education, primary school, high school, Bachelors, and Masters and above; and ethnicity (country of birth; classified as Asian, African, and non-English speaking self-nominated CALD European). We used the modified version [i.e., a 15-indicator risk perception scale] of Gerhold’s (2020) COVID-19 risk perception measure, which was developed based on Slovic’s (1987) psychometric concepts― a. cognitive [i.e., likelihood of being affected] and affective dimension [i.e., fear and general concerns], and b. psychometric paradigm [i.e., severity, controllability, and personal impact]. The outcome measures were: health precautions [problem-focused and emotion-focused], behavioral dimensions and emergency preparation. The 19-indicator problem-and-emotion-focused health precaution practice scale was used, drawing on Folkman & Lazarus’s (1988) problem-focused and emotion-focused strategies. Also, seven items of behavioral dimensions and five items of emergency preparedness for coping with the COVID-19 pandemic were included. All items had 5-point Likert scales (1 = “strongly disagree” to 5 = “strongly agree”). This dataset may help the researchers who investigate multicultural health or aged care in the pandemic to link with other datasets and making use of it as a secondary use of collected data in order to develop culturally tailored pandemic-related response plan.