The Role of Social and Cultural Values in Pandemic Control in a Chinese Community: An Ethnographic Study on the Construction and Stigmatization of “Others” in Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and COVID-19 in Hong Kong

Abstract

Background: Studies have widely reported that social and cultural values serve as constraints in controlling the spread of an epidemic. However, I argue that a social and cultural value system is a double-edged sword and can motivate people’s preventive health behaviors. Few studies have examined the positive role of social and cultural values in promoting epidemic control. Methods: Using the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in 2003 and the COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2020 in Hong Kong as examples, the present study performed participant observation in Hong Kong from January to June 2003 and from January 2020 to May 2022; in-depth individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 70 participants between February 2021 and March 2022. Results: Social and cultural values serve as informal social control mechanisms in manipulating people’s adoption of preventive health behaviors that can assist in epidemic control. Specifically, the construction and stigmatization of the “others” groups and the traditional cultural values based on the capitalist ideology were noted to facilitate control measures against the two outbreaks in Hong Kong. Conclusion: These two outbreaks reinforced the embedded social and cultural values of the capitalist ideology of Hong Kong, which increased the vulnerability of disadvantaged social groups to stigmatization.