The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent recurrences have profound effect on psychological, social and physical health of people. The fear of Corona virus has posed unexampled stress on all the population segments of country. The perceived threat has made people more conscious about their health and immunity. This has triggered a significant change in consumer buying behaviour towards immunity products. This study attempts to analyse the factors influencing immunity literacy among people and to determine predictor variables for people's immunity consciousness. A sample of 391 respondents was collected and analyzed using descriptive and determinant analysis. The findings of the study highlight important factors behind consumers' literacy and their buying behaviour towards immunity products. In conclusion, a high variance is observed on the basis of the length of time, use of products and money spent in buying immunity products. A function mapping based on their buying intention towards immunity products categorized people as immunity aware or immunity ignorant.
Top1. Introduction
Developing immunity against viruses has become the greatest challenge in recent times. Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in India, there have been around millions of people who got infected with the Corona virus. The fear and anxiety of the increasing number of cases has transformed people to become immunity aware to protect themselves against the virus. To control the spread of the virus, Government of India has taken proactive vaccination drives across the nation. The biggest and most successful vaccination drive in India is one of the major reasons due to which people are now immune in the world (Business Standard, 2022). It has been observed that COVID-19 vaccines are effective in preventing mortality and play a significant role in reducing the risk of spread and deaths associated with the COVID-19 (Kaunain, 2021).
Each immunity aware individual contributes to the safety of other people in their closed coterie thereby minimizing the spread of it. This has caused decrease in the number of people being infected in late 2021. Understanding and devising the consumer behaviour based on demographic factors and needs of people is vital during pandemic. Government can utilize the conclusions drawn from such researches to enhance immunity literacy among people. At the same time companies dealing in immunity booster products can better plan their targeted customers.
Who is not conscious about their health? Be it a professional, businessman, housewife, retired individual or a student, whether male or female, working or non-working people. The findings of our last statistical analysis on the monthly consumption of people on immunity products points to the fact that most of the working people are conscious about their health which makes them spend on immunity products (Arora, Mehta & Arora, 2021). Some people are more conscious, while some are carefree. This can be rephrased in the other way also; those who have better buying capacity are ready to spend on their health as compared to others who are ignorant to improve their immunity. Our second study, created a novel categorization based on people, their health awareness and priorities towards immunity. The research coined the concept that people who take regular measures to stay healthy are called immunity aware and those individuals who do not spend on their health as healthy immune system is not their priority fall in immunity ignorant category (Arora & Arora, 2023). Both these terms are coined with substantiate review and study undertaken by authors in previous researches.
An individual’s behavior is impacted by directly or indirectly observing others in their social proximity. There are many theories that connects people conscious decisions with their health behavior. Fishbein and Ajzen in 1975 found out that an adequate social cognitive health behaviour predicts an individual’s health behaviour and also promotes the change in health consciousness and behavior (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). The social cognitive behaviour provide strong health related intentions in people (Norman & Conner, 2005). Also, behaviors are the end products of beliefs. One of the psychological theory says that the three factors of attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behaviors designs an individual’s health behaviors and hence the actions. People becoming conscious or neglecting their health, this intention is shaped by their attitude towards importance of health. Ajzen in his research coined that intention of people to behave in a particular manner can be accurately predicted via their attitude towards that particular behavior, their values and norms affecting the outcome and the perceived behavioral control. All these intentions, account for the variation in an individual’s actual behavior (Ajzen, 1991).
There are numerous research evidences that suggests that people make contributions in their own health and overall well-being by accepting certain good hygienic health behaviors while avoiding other compromised behavior which may impact their health adversely. Identification of such good health behaviors has become a focus in psychological research (Adler & Matthews, 1994). These researches are the results of the motivational desire to change the prevalence of these behaviour which may produce improvements in an individuals’ health. Right interventions may also help individuals in gaining an understanding of the reasons of why an individual perform in a specific way (Adler & Matthews, 1994).