Political Identity as an Obstacle : The Effect of Local Identity and Perceived Benefit on Use Intention of Health Code in Hong Kong during COVID-19

Health code is a QR code technology based on the smartphone, which allows the Chinese government to deal with COVID-19 more effectively by tracing citizens and matching their test  results. However, the promotion of the health code in Hong Kong led by the government has caused many controversies. Supporters believe that the health code will help curb the spread of the coronavirus and restore the economy, while opponents mainly question the political surveillance, restricted freedom, and privacy leakage. Correspondingly, a growing body of research has concluded that the adoption of a health strategy is not only a health issue but also a political issue(Clinton et al., 2021). For example, Hornsey et al. (2020) have examined the relationship between people's party identity and their attitude towards vaccination. Young and Bleakley (2020) have established the Ideological Health Spirals Model to explain the relationship between political polarization and health behaviors during COVID-19. Based on the previous studies, this study integrates the Hong Kong Identity Scale (Chow et al., 2020) and Health Belief Model (Rosenstocket al., 1988) to examine the effect of political factors in predicting the use of health code in Hong Kong. 

Previous literature has confirmed that the local identity of Hong Kong citizens may have a widespread impact on their attitude towards the economy, policy, technology, and some other aspects, especially when mainland China touches on these aspects (Pang & Jiang, 2019). Thus, we propose hypothesis 1: Hong Kong citizens with different identities (categorical variables based on 1item) have a different perception towards health belief-related variables; and hypothesis 2: the degree of Hong Konger identity (continuous variable derived from a 5-item and 7-point scale) has a negative effect on the use intention of health code through health belief-related variables. The data(N = 350) were collected via an online survey randomly in both local Hong Kong people and Mainland Chinese living in Hong Kong. 

Results of ANOVA revealed that the group of respondents with sole Hong Konger identity perceived significantly lower severity and susceptibility of COVID-19, higher barrier and lower benefit of health code, and lower use intention than other three groups (Chinese, Chinese Hong Konger, and Hong Kong Chinese). Accordingly, the results of mediating analysis presented a similar pattern. The degree of Hong Kong identity (cultural and civic dimension included)negatively affected the perceived benefit of the health code (β = -.81, se = .25, p < .001). Moreover, perceived benefit had a positive effect on the use intention of health code (β = .88, se = .17, p< .001). The degree of Hong Konger identity could indirectly and negatively affect the use intention through the mediation of perceived benefit (β = -.71, se = .15, p < .001). In conclusion, facing toCOVID-19 pandemic, the local Hong Konger identity plays a role of obstacle in using health code.  The limitation and more detailed discussion and conclusion (e.g., the definition and mechanism of Hong Kong identity) would be included in the future progress of this study.