Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Insights into crisis management and trust in public health consequences can be obtained by studying non-pharmaceutical interventions, which have been an important part of the anti-COVID-19 strategy. These restrictions are very difficult to enforce (due to the scale of the policies), making them an interesting setting in which to test how publics with different levels of trust comply with government prescriptions. Using European Social Survey data regarding the spread of COVID-19, as well as the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker, this study aims to test the impact of different levels of trust in different institutions on the compliance with NPIs in a sample of European countries. The results show that both interpersonal trust and trust in institutions play a role. The former has a positive effect, while the effect of the latter depends on the type of institution: trust in government and parliament does not affect citizens’ behavior, whereas trust in political parties, justice, the police and the healthcare system does have an impact on public behavior.

Keywords

non pharmaceutical intervention interpersonal trust trust in institution COVID-19

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Adamson

C. S.

Chibale

Goss

R. J. M.

Jaspars

Newman

D. J.

Dorrington

R. A.

(2021). Antiviral drug discovery: Preparing for the next pandemic. Chemical Society Review, 50(6), 3647–3655.

Alfano

(2021). Work ethics, stay-at-home measures and COVID-19 diffusion. European Journal of Health Economics, 23(5), 893–901.

Alfano

(2022a). Does social capital enforce social distancing? Economia Politica, 39(3), 839–859.

Alfano

(2022b). The effects of school closures on COVID-19: A cross-country panel analysis. Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, 20, 223–233.

Alfano

(2025). From expression to infection: decoding the role of freedom in pandemic dynamics. Economia Politica, in press.

Alfano

Cicatiello

Ercolano

(2021). School openings and the COVID-19 outbreak in Italy. A provincial-level analysis using the synthetic control method. Health Policy, 125(9), 1200–1207.

Alfano

Ercolano

(2020a). Capitale sociale bonding e bridging alla prova del lockdown. Un’analisi sulle regioni italiane. Rivista Economica del Mezzogiorno, 3, 2020.

Alfano

Ercolano

(2020b). The efficacy of lockdown against COVID-19: A cross-country panel analysis. Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, 18, 509–517.

Alfano

Ercolano

(2021). Stay at Home! Governance Quality and Effectiveness of Lockdown. Social Indicator Research, 159(1), 101–123.

10.

Alfano

Ercolano

Pinto

(2022). Fighting the COVID pandemic: national policy choices in non-pharmaceutical interventions. Journal of Policy Modeling, 44(1), 22–40.

11.

Alfano

Sgobbi

(2021). A Peste, Fame et Bello libera Nos, Domine. An analysis of the black death in Chioggia in 1630. Journal of Family History, 44(1), 22–40.

12.

Allison

P. D.

(2009). Fixed effects regression models. Sage.

13.

Almond

Verba

(1963). The civic culture: Political attitudes and democracy in five nations. Princeton University Press.

14.

Badman

R. P.

Wang

A. X.

Skrodzki

Cho

H.-C.

Aguilar-Lleyda

Shiono

Yoo

S. B. M.

Chiang

Y.-S.

Akaishi

(2022). Trust in institutions, not in political leaders, determines compliance in COVID-19 prevention measures within societies across the globe. Behavioral Sciences, 12(6), 170.

15.

Bargain

Aminjonov

(2020). Trust and compliance to public health policies in time of COVID-19. Journal of Public Economics, 192, 104316.

16.

Bjørnskov

(2007). Determinants of generalized trust: A cross-country comparison. Public Choice, 130, 1–21.

17.

Braithwaite

Levi

(eds) (1998). Trust and governance. Russell Sage Foundation.

18.

Chan

H. F.

Brumpton

Macintyre

Arapoc

Savage

D. A.

Skali

Torgler

(2020). How confidence in health care systems affects mobility and compliance during the COVID-19 pandemic. PloS One, 15(10), e0240644.

19.

EVS (2020): European values study 2017: Integrated dataset (EVS2017). GESIS Data Archive, Cologne. ZA7500 Data file Version 4.0.0.

20.

Fehr

(2009). On the economics and biology of trust. Journal of the European Economic Association, 7, 235–266.

21.

Fukuyama

(1995). Trust. The social virtues and the creation of prosperity London. Hamish Hamilton.

22.

Gilson

(2003). Trust and the development of health care as a social institution. Social Science and Medicine, 56(7), 1453–1468.

23.

Grimes

(2006). Organizing consent: The role of procedural fairness in political trust and compliance. European Journal of Political Research, 45(2), 285–315.

24.

Halaby

C. N.

(2004). Panel models in sociological research: Theory into practice. Annual Review of Sociology, 30, 507–544.

25.

Hale

Angrist

Cameron Blake

Hallas

Kira

Majumdar

Petherick

Phillips

Tatlow

Webster

(2020a). Variation in government responses to COVID-19 version 7.0. Blavatnik School of Government Working Paper. May 25, 2020. Available: www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/covidtracker

26.

Hale

Angrist

Cameron Blake

Hallas

Kira

Majumdar

Petherick

Phillips

Tatlow

Webster

(2020b). Oxford COVID-19 government response tracker, Blavatnik school of government. www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/covidtracker

27.

Hale

Angrist

Hale

A. J.

Kira

Majumdar

Petherick

Zhang

(2021). Government responses and COVID-19 deaths: Global evidence across multiple pandemic waves. PLOS ONE, 16(5), e0253116.

28.

Han

Zheng

Cristea

Agostini

Bélanger

J. J.

Gützkow

, & PsyCorona Collaboration (2023). Trust in government regarding COVID-19 and its associations with preventive health behaviour and prosocial behaviour during the pandemic: A cross-sectional and longitudinal study. Psychological Medicine, 53(1), 149–159.

29.

Hotez

P. J.

(2021). Preventing the next pandemic: Vaccine diplomacy in a time of anti-science. Johns Hopkins University Press.

30.

Hsiang

Allen

Annan-Phan

Bell

Bolliger

Chong

(2020). The effect of large-scale anti-contagion policies on the COVID-19 pandemic. Nature, 584, 262–267.

31.

Hupcey

J.E.

Penrod

Morse

J.M.

Mitcham

(2001). An exploration and advancement of the concept of trust. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 36, 282–293.

32.

Kawashi

Kennedy

B. P.

Lochner

Prothrow-Stith

(1997). Social capital, social inequality, and mortality. American Journal of Public Health, 87(9), 1491–1498.

33.

Khodyakov

(2007). Trust as a process: A three-dimensional approach. Sociology, 41, 115–132.

34.

Knack

Keefer

(1997). Does social capital have an economic payoff? A cross-country investigation. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 112(4), 1251–1288.

35.

Kim

(2005). The role of trust in the modern administrative state: An integrative model. Administration and Society, 37, 611.

36.

Kuroki

Yamamoto

Goldfinch

(2022). Factors Influencing the adoption of voluntary nonpharmaceutical interventions to control COVID-19 in Japan: Cross-sectional Study. JMIR Formative Research, 6(8), e34268.

37.

Lauer

S. A.

Grantz

K. H.

Jones

F. K.

Zheng

Meredith

Azman

A. S.

Reich

N. G.

Lessler

(2020). The incubation period of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) from publicly reported confirmed cases: Estimation and application. Annals of Intern Medicine, 172(9), 577–582.

38.

Letki

(2006). Investigating the roots of civic morality: Trust, social capital, and institutional performance. Political Behavior, 28(4), 305–325.

39.

Marien

Hooghe

(2011). Does political trust matter? An empirical investigation into the relation between political trust and support for law compliance. European Journal of Political Research, 50(2), 267–291.

40.

Mégarbane

Bourasset

Scherrmann

J. M.

(2021). Is lockdown effective in limiting SARS-CoV-2 epidemic progression?—A cross-country comparative evaluation using epidemiokinetic tools. Journal General Internal Medicine, 36, 746–752.

41.

Neuhaus

J. M.

Kalbfleisch

J. D.

(1998). Between- and within-cluster covariate effects in the analysis of clustered data. Biometrics, 54, 638–645.

42.

Newton

Zmerli

(2011). Three forms of trust and their association. European Political Science Review: EPSR, 3(2), 169.

43.

Norris

(ed.). (1999). Critical citizens: Global support for democratic government. OUP Oxford.

44.

Norris

(2011). Democratic deficit: Critical citizens revisited. Cambridge University Press.

45.

Pak

McBryde

E.S.

Adegboye

O. A.

(2021). Does high public trust amplify compliance with stringent COVID-19 government health guidelines? A multi-country analysis using data from 102,627 individuals. Risk Management and Healthcare Policy, 14, 293–302.

46.

Putnam

R. D.

(1993). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton University Press.

47.

Putman

R. D.

(2000). Bowling alone. The collapse and revival of American community. Simon & Schuster.

48.

Rabe-Hesketh

Skrondal

(2008). Multilevel and longitudinal modeling using stata. 2nd ed. Stata Press.

49.

Raudenbush

(1989). “Centering” predictors in multilevel analysis: Choices and consequences. Multilevel Modelling Newsletter, 1(2), 10–12.

50.

Saechang

(2021). Public trust and policy compliance during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of professional trust. Healthcare, 9, 151.

51.

Schunck

(2013). Within and between estimates in random-effects models: Advantages and drawbacks of correlated random effects and hybrid models. Stata Journal, 13(1), 65–76.

52.

Scott

W. R.

(2014). Institutions and organizations: Ideas, interests, and identities (4th ed.). Sage Publications.

53.

Simpson

Kaufmann

M. C.

Glozman

Chakrabarti

(2020). Disease X: accelerating the development of medical countermeasures for the next pandemic. The Lancet Infectious Diseases, V, 20(5), 108–115.

54.

Smit

A. J.

Fitchett

J. M.

Engelbrecht

F. A.

Scholes

R. J.

Dzhivhuho

Sweijd

N. A.

(2020). Winter is coming: A Southern hemisphere perspective of the environmental drivers of SARS-CoV-2 and the potential seasonality of COVID-19. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(16), 5634.

55.

Tyler

T.R.

(1990). Why people obey the law. Yale University Press.

56.

Tyler

T.R.

(1998). Public mistrust of the law: A political perspective. University of Cincinnati Law Review, 66, 847–1411.

57.

Wang

Kapucu

(2008). Public complacency under repeated emergency threats: Some empirical evidence. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 18(1), 57–78.

58.

Wooldridge

J. M.

(2010). Econometric analysis of cross section and panel data. 2nd ed. MIT Press.

59.

Yamagishi

(2011). Trust: The evolutionary game of mind and society; The science of the mind. Springer.