Mass meets mosh: Exploring healthcare professionals' perspectives on social identity processes and health risks at a religious pilgrimage and music festivals.

Rationale: The field of mass gathering medicine has tended to focus on physical factors in the aggravation and mitigation of health risks in mass gatherings to the neglect of psychosocial factors.

Objectives: This study sought to explore perspectives of healthcare professionals (HCPs) on (1) implications of social identity processes for mass gathering-associated health risks; and (2) how social identity processes can be drawn on to inform and improve healthcare practices and interventions targeted at mitigating health risks in mass gatherings.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews, complemented by a brief survey, were conducted with 17 HCPs in the United Kingdom operating at a religious pilgrimage and music festivals.

Shared social identification in mass gatherings lowers health risk perceptions via lowered disgust.

Previous research concerning mass gathering-associated health risks has focused on physical factors while largely neglecting the role of psychological factors. The present research examined the effect of experiencing shared social identification on perceptions of susceptibility to health risks in mass gatherings. Participants in Study 1 were asked to either recall a crowd in which they shared a social identity with other crowd members or a crowd in which they did not.

Opium of the people? National identification predicts well-being over time.

Social group membership and its social-relational corollaries, for example, social contact, trust, and support, are prophylactic for health. Research has tended to focus on how direct social interactions between members of small-scale groups (i.e.