Trust in experts, not trust in national leadership, leads to greater uptake of recommended actions during the COVID‐19 pandemic

Abstract

Evidence suggests that people vary in their desire to undertake protective actions during a health emergency, and that trust in authorities may influence decision making. We sought to examine how the trust in health experts and trust in White House leadership during the COVID‐19 pandemic impacts individuals' decisions to adopt recommended protective actions such as mask‐wearing. A mediation analysis was conducted using cross‐sectional U.S. survey data collected between March 27 and 30, 2020, to elucidate how individuals' trust in health experts and White House leadership, their perceptions of susceptibility and severity to COVID‐19, and perceived benefits of protecting against COVID‐19, influenced their uptake of recommended protective actions. Trust in health experts was associated with greater perceived severity of COVID‐19 and benefits of taking action, which led to greater uptake of recommended actions. Trust in White House leadership was associated with lower perceived susceptibility to COVID‐19 and was not associated with taking recommended actions. Having trust in health experts is a greater predictor of individuals' uptake of protective actions than having trust in White House leadership. Public health messaging should emphasize the severity of COVID‐19 and the benefits of protecting oneself while ensuring consistency and transparency to regain trust in health experts.

Different roles of interpersonal trust and institutional trust in COVID-19 pandemic control

“…However, trust can be classified into several types. Recent studies have suggested that trust in nongovernmental health experts could increase participants' acceptance of protective measures ( Ahluwalia et al, 2021 ). Future studies should investigate the effects of other trust dimensions.…”

An incongruous intervention: Exploring the role of anti‐institutionalism in less‐educated individual’s limited uptake of nutrition information

“…Moreover, research during the COVID‐19 pandemic has shown that support for preventive health measures is much greater among individuals with more institutional trust (e.g. Ahluwalia et al, 2021 ; Lachapelle et al, 2021 ), providing an incentive to also study its merit in nutrition‐related health promotion efforts. Consequently, we hypothesize: Less ‐ educated individuals make less use of institutional nutrition information because they distrust institutions more (hypothesis 1).…”

Trust in Science and COVID-19

“…Literature suggests that a complex interplay of factors influences the desire of people to undertake the recommended actions during a crisis, such as the sociodemographic characteristics, knowledge, personal responsibility, perception of personal risk or threat [99], and one's personal stance towards a scientific topic [5], among others. The above factors are tied to trust since information that is coming from trusted sources is more likely to be considered accurate and can influence one's willingness to adhere to the recommended measures [99]. Importantly, trust has been also found to be a predictor of compliance to protective measures [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28].…”