Special Survey on New Coronavirus Infectious Disease
(JHPS COVID-19 Special Survey/JHPS-COVID19)
Purposes of the survey
The purposes of this survey are (1) to understand how individuals’ life, awareness, behavior, and mental condition are affected by the unprecedented worldwide epidemic of the unknown infectious disease called New Coronavirus, and (2) to construct the basic dataset for researches which would derive both policy and academic implications. Japanese government issued the first State of Emergency Declaration (Kinkyu Jitai Sengen) in April, 2020, requiring various behavioral restrictions and inducing a reduction in socioeconomic activities. Hence, the first and the second JHPS COVID-19 Special Survey was conducted in May to June, 2020, and October to November, 2020, respectively, in order to follow up and clarify the changes in household behavior before, intermediately after the pandemic, and approximately six months after the outbreak of the pandemic. Subsequently, the third and fourth wave of JHPS COVID-19 Special Survey were conducted in May to June, and October to November in 2021, respectively.
Items of the survey
Channel of access to information about new coronavirus infectious disease, implementation of infection prevention strategy, application to financial assistance, testing status, subjective influence, health condition, anxiety, change in life condition, time allocation, sleep, diet, exercise, drinking and smoking behavior, income and expenditure, well-being, stratification, consideration toward social cohesion and trust, whether approving polices regarding infectious disease or not, children’s absence from kindergarten and school, children’s life and health condition, employment status, work days and hours, telecommuting days and hours, efficiency of telework, work engagement, work performance, etc.
Target and method of the survey
In the first survey, the questionnaires were mailed to 5,470 households that responded to the “Japan Household Panel Survey (JHPS/KHPS)” conducted on February, 2020, and responses were received from 3,891 households (valid response rate equals 71%). In the second survey, the questionnaires were mailed to the household that responded to the first survey, and responses were received from 3,244 households (valid response rate equals 83%). In the third survey, the questionnaires were mailed to the household that responded to the second survey and also the respondents of the JHPS/KHPS2021, and responses were received from 3,681 households. In the fourth survey, the questionnaires were mailed to the household that responded to the third survey, and responses were received from 3,314 households.
Respondents choose either filling out a paper-based questionnaire and then mailing it, or entering their responses on a web-based questionnaire.
