Participants living in northeastern Taiwan were found to be much more likely to practice the recommended AI preventive behavior than those living in central Taiwan in the current study. Such regional differences in preventive behavior were also reported in a Laotian population [20] and were attributed to different participant characteristics in urban and rural areas. In light of such findings, the present study also took into account gender, age, education, and other covariates in the multivariate regression model. However, the regional differences still remained. A possible explanation is that participants in northeastern Taiwan, which is more rural and has fewer healthcare resources than central Taiwan, may choose the relatively easy and cost-effective measures such as wearing face masks and washing hands to protect against AI. Another study in China also found differences between Guangzhou and Hong Kong in regard to participants' AI risk perception and live poultry purchase [29] ; while its outcome variable of interest was not AI preventive behavior, regional differences were present and were ascribed to cultural differences. Notably, the current study found that participants who lived in rural areas were more likely to practice the recommended AI preventive behavior (i.e., both face mask wearing and handwashing) than those who lived in urban areas; however, prior research has found that people living in rural areas were more likely to practice the AI risky behavior (i.e., live poultry purchase) than those living in urban areas [29] . Caution needs to be exercised in interpreting such inconsistency, because different behaviors could have different determinants, and therefore, it is possible that these two studies found inconsistent results due to the different natures of these behaviors in question. These findings suggest that future studies may investigate potential cross-national differences in AI preventive behavior, and that qualitative research is also needed to explore regional differences caused by cross-cultural differences as well as other possible causal mechanisms.