Revenge of the experts: Will COVID-19 renew or diminish public trust in science?

Eichengreen, Barry; Aksoy, Cevat Giray; Saka, Orkun

doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104343

Cited by 95 publications

(76 citation statements)

References 28 publications

(35 reference statements)

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“…While our findings refer to behavioral changes during the early months of the pandemic, they provide suggestive evidence that trust and social capital likely played important roles throughout the pandemic in shaping the public response and adherence to the restrictions. Our results, therefore, suggest that building trust, combined with strategic controls and clear communication by the government, could provide a successful tool for authorities to promote pro-social public behavior of social distancing during mass immunization campaigns (Eichengreen et al 2021 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 81%

Stay-at-home orders, social distancing, and trust

2021

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A clear understanding of community response to government decisions is crucial for policy makers and health officials during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we document the determinants of implementation and compliance with stay-at-home orders in the USA, focusing on trust and social capital. Using cell phone data measuring changes in non-essential trips and average distance traveled, we find that mobility decreases significantly more in high-trust counties than in low-trust counties after the stay-at-home orders are implemented, with larger effects for more stringent orders. We also provide evidence that the estimated effect on post-order compliance is especially large for confidence in the press and governmental institutions, and relatively smaller for confidence in medicine and in science.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 81%

Stay-at-home orders, social distancing, and trust

2021

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“…Indeed, some document that the pandemic has increased the public’s trust in science [ 11 ], and impacted the extent to which people trust institutions [ 12 ]. Conversely, others report a negative relationship and caution that the pandemic has eroded public trust in science and reduced the willingness to get a vaccine [ 13 ]. Along these lines, Thaker [ 14 ] underscores the importance of scientific trust and argues that trusted scientific experts are crucial in increasing vaccination rates.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of race and scientific trust on support for COVID-19 social distancing measures in the United States

2021

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Pundits and academics across disciplines note that the human toll brought forth by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in the United States (U.S.) is fundamentally unequal for communities of color. Standing literature on public health posits that one of the chief predictors of racial disparity in health outcomes is a lack of institutional trust among minority communities. Furthermore, in our own county-level analysis from the U.S., we find that counties with higher percentages of Black and Hispanic residents have had vastly higher cumulative deaths from COVID-19. In light of this standing literature and our own analysis, it is critical to better understand how to mitigate or prevent these unequal outcomes for any future pandemic or public health emergency. Therefore, we assess the claim that raising institutional trust, primarily scientific trust, is key to mitigating these racial inequities. Leveraging a new, pre-pandemic measure of scientific trust, we find that trust in science, unlike trust in politicians or the media, significantly raises support for COVID-19 social distancing policies across racial lines. Our findings suggest that increasing scientific trust is essential to garnering support for public health policies that lessen the severity of the current, and potentially a future, pandemic.

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“…Eichengreen et al (2021) show that individuals exposed to epidemics during their impressionable years are less likely to trust scientists. Our finding that treated individuals show remarkably higher support for (scientific) expertise shows that the effect of a global pandemic might differ from that of local epidemics in this respect.5 See, among others,Hetherington and Nelson (2003),Gibler et al (2012) andAriely (2017), and the literature therein.…”

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confidence: 98%

When Distrust Goes Viral – Causal Eﬀects of Covid-19 on European Political Attitudes

et al. 2020

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To investigate how Covid-19 is shaping the way Europeans think about institutions, we conducted a large online survey experiment during the first wave of the epidemic (June). With a randomised survey ow we varied whether respondents are given Covid-related treatment questions first, before answering the outcome questions. We find that the crisis has severely undermined trust in politicians, the media, the EU and social welfare spending financed by taxes. This is mainly due to economic insecurity, but also because of health concerns. We also uncover a rallying effect around (scientific) expertise combined with populist policies losing ground.

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Revenge of the experts: Will COVID-19 renew or diminish public trust in science?

Cited by 95 publications

References 28 publications

Stay-at-home orders, social distancing, and trust

Stay-at-home orders, social distancing, and trust

The role of race and scientific trust on support for COVID-19 social distancing measures in the United States

When Distrust Goes Viral – Causal Eﬀects of Covid-19 on European Political Attitudes

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