  In the COVID-19 pandemic, refugees' access to information has become
increasingly important given the rapid change in the scientific and public
health knowledge-base. However, this access is complicated by social distancing
requirements that disrupt traditional in-person communication. Many refugees
must then rely on alternative information sources to stay informed. Differences
in media types and information sources in turn may be related to anxieties
arising from the virus and perceptions of others' adherence to recommended
protective behaviors. We examine these relationships with survey data from
1,000 refugees living in both camps and non-camp settings in Kenya. Using logit
models, we test relationships between information source and anxiety and the
effect of these variables on refugees' expected behaviors of community members.
Our primary contributions include the finding that information sources
consistently exacerbate (e.g., Facebook) or ameliorate (e.g., news from the
internet) different anxieties, or can have mixed effects (e.g., radio). We also
find that anxiety and information have significant impacts on refugees'
expectations of compliance by others and that, whether between camps or between
camps and non-camp locales, findings vary by location. Our results have
implications for refugee media and infectious disease anxiety scholarship as
well as for managing infectious disease response.
