Reaction Toward Potential Resurgent Multiple Risks: Understanding Risk Information Seeking and Behavior in the Post-Pandemic Era

This study applies the Risk Information Seeking and Processing (RISP) model to understand how individuals seek and process information related to overlapping pandemics, including COVID-19, flu, monkeypox, and polio. These overlapping health crises have created a complex media environment, contributing to pandemic fatigue, information overload, and varied preventive behaviors. The research explores how pandemic fatigue influences informational behaviors—such as information seeking, processing, and avoidance—and how these behaviors, in turn, predict preventive behavioral intentions. Using an online survey of 443 participants, structural equation modeling was employed to test the hypotheses. Results indicate that information insufficiency positively predicts both information seeking and systematic processing, while negatively predicting heuristic processing and information avoidance. Pandemic fatigue, in contrast, reduces the perception of information insufficiency and diminishes individuals’ information-seeking behaviors, though it does not significantly affect heuristic processing or avoidance. Notably, pandemic fatigue was found to negatively influence preventive behavioral intentions, suggesting that individuals experiencing higher levels of fatigue are less likely to engage in protective measures like mask-wearing or vaccination. The study offers both theoretical and practical contributions. Theoretically, it extends the RISP model by incorporating pandemic fatigue as a key variable and analyzing its impact in a multi-pandemic context. Practically, the findings provide insights for public health communication strategies aimed at mitigating the adverse effects of pandemic fatigue and promoting preventive health behaviors. Public health messages should balance the need for essential information delivery with the risk of overwhelming individuals who are already fatigued by ongoing health crises.