Perception de la Covid et comportement des ménages au Burkina Faso. Une analyse sur données d’enquête

Very soon after the first cases of Covid appeared on the African continent, governments adopted a series of measures to limit its spread. To be effective, these measures require that they be widely accepted and respected by the population, notwithstanding their various costs to the individual. Compliance depends on numerous individual and collective cultural, socio-economic, institutional and environmental factors, as well as on the perception of the risks involved and the severity of the protean consequences that the pandemic may generate. We examine these various issues based on data from a survey conducted in Burkina Faso in May-June 2020. The results show that the measures adopted by the authorities to limit the spread of the pandemic are generally fairly well respected. The vast majority of respondents take the epidemic very seriously and consider that the health consequences, and even more so the economic consequences, will be serious. The survey also shows that a large proportion of respondents are concerned about the consequences of the epidemic on the deepening of inequalities and the increase in violence and insecurity. The results highlight both common features and great heterogeneity in perception and behavioral response at the individual and regional levels, thus providing useful information for Burkina Faso's decision-makers to better calibrate the prevention strategies to be implemented as the pandemic accelerates in Burkina as in other African countries and the prospect of broad immunization coverage remains both distant and highly uncertain.