Mental well-being and government support in Europe. The mediating role of trust in people and institutions

Purpose: This paper investigates the determinants of subjective well-being in Europe using the European Living, Working and COVID-19 (ELWC) Survey carried out by Eurofound (2021). Socio-demographics characteristics, employment status, measures of economic distress, inequality and work life balance are considered. Particular attention is paid to how quality of government support (QGS), that considers the dimensions of good governance such as integrity, fairness, reliability, responsiveness and influences subjective mental well-being (WHO-5) through the mediation of trust in other people and in institutions. Design/methodology/approach: To this end, the authors estimate a moderated mediation model for analysing the indirect role of QGS on WHO-5 through institutional trust and trust in people. Findings: The results support the hypothesis that the reduction in WHO-5 in the European population during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID--19), particularly marked in the 18–34 age group, is related to the perceived inadequacy of government interventions in managing economic and social uncertainty through supportive measures. This outcome is also due to reduced trust in institutions and other people, as both are significant mediators that reinforce the impact of public support on WHO-5. Practical implications: Government should pay greater attention to this relationship amongst good governance, trust and mental health of citizens because a healthy human capital is a significant factor for the long-run economic growth, in a special way when the authors refer to the young workforce with a greater life expectancy. Originality/value: In the literature, the role of trust as a mediator has been analysed in the relationship between individual economic situations and subjective well-being before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. To the best of the authors' knowledge, no studies have examined the role of perceived QGS on subjective mental well-being using the mediating and backing effects of trust in people and institutions. Peer review: The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-08-2022-0549. © 2023, Erica Poma, Barbara Pistoresi and Chiara Giovinazzo.

Does partisan media make a pawn of mistrust? Institutional trust and preventive covid-19 health behaviors in a polarized pandemic

In a rapidly developing crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic, people are often faced with contradictory or changing information and must determine what sources to trust. Across five time points (N = 5902) we examine how trust in various sources predicts COVID-19 health behaviors. Trust in experts and national news predicted more engagement with most health behaviors from April 2020 to March 2022 and trust in Fox news, which often positioned itself as counter to the mainstream on COVID-19, predicted less engagement. However, we also examined a particular public health behavior (masking) before and after the CDC announcement recommending masks on 3 April 2020 (which reversed earlier expert advice discouraging masks for the general public). Prior to the announcement, trust in experts predicted less mask-wearing while trust in Fox News predicted more. These relationships disappeared in the next 4 days following the announcement and reversed in the 2 years that follow, and emerged for vaccination in the later time points. We also examine how the media trusted by Democrats and Republicans predicts trust in experts and in turn health behaviors. Broadly we consider how the increasingly fragmented epistemic environment has implications for polarization on matters of public health. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Trust Associated with South Korean Sojourners' Chinese COVID-19 Vaccination Intent and Concerns: A Qualitative Study.

People's willingness to get vaccinated determines whether the campaigns against the COVID-19 pandemic can be successful in part. Considering the fact that both foreigners and its nationals are exposed to the risk of infection in China, the Chinese government has taken measures favorable to foreigners in terms of the vaccination, yet South Korean sojourners were reluctant to get China-developed COVID-19 vaccines. This study employed the trust in institutions and trust in media as a theoretical framework and seeks to analyze how these two affect South Korean sojourners' intention to get Chinese COVID-19 vaccines. 25 South Korean sojourners living in Beijing participated in semi-structured interviews. The results showed that the mistrust South Korean sojourners have in China's institutions and media, both traditional and social media, led to their reluctance to get Chinese COVID-19 vaccines. In addition, South Korean sojourners' higher interpersonal trust in their peers also influenced their willingness to get vaccines. This study further interpreted such results from the perspective of cultural traits and national properties.

How and why is the COVID-19 crisis impacting trust in institutions? A two-wave longitudinal study in Italy

Using a quota panel of the adult Italian population (N = 1,192), we conducted a two-wave longitudinal study to analyse how and why the COVID-19 crisis affected Italians' trust in institutions. Between May-June 2019 (before COVID-19) and April 2020 (the peak of the pandemic), trust in political institutions (political parties, parliament, and local administrations) and in super partes national institutions (the President of the Republic, the judiciary, and the police) increased, whereas trust in international institutions (the European Union and the United Nations) decreased. A mediation model showed that anxiety and collective angst were positively associated with seeking information about COVID-19 from institutional and relational sources. In turn, seeking information from institutional sources further increased trust in institutions, whereas seeking information from social media and friends did not. The same pattern held for trust in epistemic authorities (the national health care system, civil protection and scientists), which was measured only in the second wave. These results suggest that it is extremely important to pay attention to public communication strategies, as they play a crucial role in transforming individual and collective distress in times of crisis into trust in institutions, even net of the effect of information from relational sources. The strengths and limitations of the study are discussed, and directions for possible future research are suggested.

The role of party preferences in explaining acceptance of freedom restrictions in a pandemic context: the Italian case.

As a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic, several governments adopted disease containment measures limiting individual freedom, especially freedom of movement. Our contribution aims at studying the role played by party preferences in explaining attitudes towards those freedom limitations during the pandemic, taking into account the moderating role played by confidence in institutions and collectivist-individualistic orientations. Focussing on Italy, as the first western democracy to be hit by Covid-19 and to adopt harsh restrictive measures, we analyse data coming from the ResPOnsE COVID-19 project. Our study initially investigates whether attitudes towards freedom restrictions are associated with the dynamics of the pandemic and the institutional responses to it. Then, through multilevel regression models, we test several hypotheses about the relationship between party preferences, confidence in institutions, collectivistic orientations and public acceptance of Covid-19 containment measures limiting individual freedom. Findings show that party preferences are associated with different attitudes towards freedom restrictions to contain the pandemic, but this occurs only if people have individualistic orientations. Collectivistic orientations and confidence in institutions are positively associated with acceptance of freedom restrictions, regardless of party preferences. As regards the latter, neither a classical ideological explanation (conservative people more inclined to accept limitations to personal freedoms) nor a government-opposition explanation (supporters of government parties more inclined to accept freedom restrictions) seems to be adequate to fully account for the mechanisms behind acceptance of Covid-19 harsh containment measures. Thus, we offer an alternative ideological explanation by pointing out the ambiguous nature of contemporary right-wing populisms. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11135-022-01436-3.

Combating COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy: A Synthetic Public Segmentation Approach for Predicting Vaccine Acceptance.

OBJECTIVE: Vaccine hesitancy impacts the ability to cope with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) effectively in the United States. It is important for health organizations to increase vaccine acceptance. Addressing this issue, this study aimed to predict citizens' acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine through a synthetic approach of public segmentation including cross-situational and situational variables. Controlling for demographics, we examined institutional trust, negative attitudes toward, and low levels of knowledge about vaccines (ie, lacuna public characteristics), and fear of COVID-19 during the pandemic. Our study provides a useful framework for public segmentation and contributes to risk and health campaigns by identifying significant predictors of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance. METHOD: We conducted an online survey on October 10, 2020 (N = 499), and performed hierarchical regression analyses to predict citizens' COVID-19 vaccine acceptance. RESULTS: This study demonstrated that trust in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and federal government, vaccine attitude, problem recognition, constraint recognition, involvement recognition, and fear positively predicted COVID-19 vaccine acceptance. CONCLUSIONS: This study outlines a useful synthetic public segmentation framework and extends the concept of lacuna public to the pandemic context, helping to predict vaccine acceptance. Importantly, the findings could be useful in designing health campaign messages.

Trust in healthcare before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

BACKGROUND: Public trust is often advantageous for health authorities during crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Norwegian health authorities used the public´s high trust to control the pandemic, resulting in relatively few casualties. METHODS: We wanted to describe and compare the Norwegian public trust in GPs, public healthcare, information and treatment in hospitals before and during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, we wanted to investigate the relationship between somatic or mental illness, and trust in GPs and public health information, and to develop a theoretical understanding of the relationship between trust in healthcare institutions, generalised trust and the societal situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. We performed two surveys, the first in December 2019; the second in May 2020, thus providing two snapshots of the Norwegian public's trust in healthcare and healthcare actors before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. RESULTS: There was statistically significant increased trust in public healthcare, in treatment at hospital and in information at hospital after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. There was a non-significant rise in trust in GPs. We found that trust in public health information was not related to mental health nor having a chronic, somatic disease. CONCLUSION: The findings confirm that the Norwegian public's trust in healthcare and healthcare actors is high. The trust levels are also relatively stable, and even show an increase during the early phases of the pandemic. We suggest that there is a dynamic relationship between trust in public health information, healthcare institutions, generalised trust and a societal crisis situation such as the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the GP-patient trust seems less affected by a crisis situation, than the public´s trust in healthcare institutions. This difference may be explained by the relative stability caused by mandates of trust obtained from the patient.

The Patterns of Interaction between Russian Citizens and Ngos in the Context of Institutional Change

The article analyzes the institutional transformation of the sphere of social services in the context of the development of the non-profit sector. The institutional transformation in the field covers the issues of changing public attitudes, the level of public trust and prevailing stereotypes. Besides, online interactions that are spreading while providing and receiving services influence the processes of the individual choice under constantly changing market conditions. The results are based on two sociological surveys devoted to studying the attitude of citizens towards the non-profit sector of social services. The surveys were conducted in Russian regions in 2019(n=1204) and 2020 (n=2047). Among the factors influencing public attitudes towards NGOs are citizens' understanding of the meaning of social services, awareness of non-state service providers and the opportunities of NGO social service sector. During the COVID-19 pandemic, people tended to resort to online services more often, we assume that this hastened the transition to the online format of interaction in the analyzed field. The revealed relationship of attitudes towards state and nonstate type providers has demonstrated that the attitude of citizens towards one type of social service provider has an impact on the formation of attitudes towards another type of provider confirming that public trust is systemic. We have identified the key stereotypes that determine the choice of the type of provider by the recipients of services. It has also been found that the personal experience of interaction with social services organizations plays an important role for establishing trust in state and non-state social services organizations. The dynamics of the public trust in the non-profit sector of social services has been analyzed based on the identification of age subgroups.

HOW CAN DIGITALIZATION ACCOMPANYING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC AFFECT ATTITUDES TOWARDS POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS? THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INTERNET USAGE ACTIVITY AND INSTITUTIONAL TRUST

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, people began to use the Internet more actively. Accordingly, the question arises of how the accelerated digitalization, which became one of the results of the pandemic, has affected various aspects of our lives, including our attitude to the political power institutions. This article discusses the relation of Internet usage activity and the trust toward the political institutions in European countries. There are contradicting data in the literature regarding the relationship between institutional trust and the activity of using the Internet. We assumed that the direction of relationship is associated with the efficiency of the state power institutions. Based on the government effectiveness index, we have chosen five European countries with the highest government efficiency and five countries with the lowest. To assess the activity of using the Internet, we used data from the European Social Survey (ESS) that show the average frequency of Internet use during the month and the average duration of its use during the day. The dependent variables were respondents' assessments of their own trust in the different political institutions. Next, using multiple regression analysis, we assessed the relationship between two indicators of Internet use activity and trust in each of the institutions. The results of the regression analysis demonstrated that in the countries with low government efficiency, the activity of Internet usage is negatively associated with trust in various political institutions. In countries with high government efficiency, we found a positive relationship between Internet usage activity and institutional trust. © 2023 National Research University Higher School of Economics. All rights reserved.

Misinformation and the Paradox of Trust during the covid-19 pandemic in the U.S.: pathways to Risk perception and compliance behaviors

As declared "infodemic” by the World Health Organization, the proliferation of Covid-19 misinformation has posed a significant challenge to public health efforts to tackle the pandemic. Despite initial evidence on the association between misinformation and behavior, researchers have yet to fully identify intervening variables to account for the behavioral effects of Covid-19 misinformation. To address this question, this study aims to examine whether and how consuming misinformation would predict public trust in health and political institutions, and in turn, shape risk perception and adherence to preventive behaviors. We conducted a web-based survey using a nationally representative sample of 1,400 U.S. adults in October 2020. We found that Covid-19 misinformation exposure was linked to lower trust in public health experts but higher trust in government, which led to a decrease in the perceived severity of Covid-19 and less compliance with public health guidance. Our findings uncover the complex social and psychological processes by which misinformation consumption undermines public health efforts during the pandemic crisis. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Loneliness and trust issues reshape mental stress of expatriates during early COVID-19: a structural equation modelling approach.

OBJECTIVES: To explore relationship among perceived stress regarding loneliness, interpersonal trust and institutional trust of expatriates during the early COVID-19 period (from 30th March to 30th May 2020). METHODS: Data from  21,439 expatriates were extracted from COVIDiSTRESS global survey. The outcome variable was perceived stress. The explanatory variables were age, perceived loneliness, trust (interpersonal and institutional). Pairwise correlation, and structural equation modelling were used to determine relationship among outcome and explanatory variables. RESULTS: The majority of the expatriates were female (73.85%), married (60.20%), had college degree (47.76%), and employed (48.72%). Over 63% of the total expatriates reported that the COVID-19 pandemic changed their lives. The average age of the respondents was 40.4 years (± 13.7), and the average score of perceived stress, loneliness, interpersonal and institutional trust were 25.5, 7.4, 14.2 and 40.4, respectively. We found a moderate correlation of perceived stress with age, perceived loneliness, interpersonal trust and institutional trust (p < 0.001). They were also found moderately related to each other. Structural equation modelling evaluated that a lack of trust can cause loneliness among expatriates, which later lead to perceived stress. Interpersonal trust was more likely to be associated with stress than institutional trust, whereas perceived loneliness mediated between both trusts and perceived stress. CONCLUSION: Perceived stress can be reduced through trusting others and alleviating the loneliness. Making strong linkage among migrants as well as between migrants and local community is important to ensure proper mental wellbeing of expatriates.

Trust and COVID precautionary measures during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from two African countries.

This study examines how trust was associated with social distancing during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in Burkina Faso and Kenya. It fills gaps in previous research on trust and health by 1) simultaneously considering the relationship of individual- and aggregate-level indicators of trust, and 2) evaluating trust in local government and national government separately. Performance Monitoring for Action (PMA) data on COVID-precautionary measures and individual-level trust measures were spatially linked with aggregated trust data from the Afrobarometer to create a multilevel dataset. PMA data show that women in Kenya were generally more likely to report taking COVID-precautionary measures relative to Burkinabé women, although levels of these measures were high in both countries. Hierarchical logistic models for each country show levels of interpersonal trust mattered more in Burkina Faso. Although the association between individual-level trust in government and social distancing was not statistically significant, overall levels of trust in the region where an individual lived were associated with social distancing. We found a significant interaction effect between regional trust in the national government and regional trust in local government: individuals in regions where trust was high in both national and local government were the most likely to socially distance; individuals in regions with low local government trust but high national government trust were less likely to report social distancing. We unpack possible implications of these findings; they point to the importance of a unified government front within African countries in promoting health safety measures during a pandemic.

Trust or Worry? The Context of the Willingness to Comply with Anti-Pandemic Measures in Slovakia

Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the willingness to comply with the Covid-19 related public health measures has been crucial. The aim of our paper was to explore the factors related to the declared level of compliance with the anti-pandemic measures in Slovakia. Our analysis is based on three waves of the How are you, Slovakia? survey, carried out at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of 2021. Our findings suggest that demographic factors such as gender, age, and education are important in terms of compliance, but the feeling of being threatened by the coronavirus, trust in scientific institutions, and trust in the government can be even more crucial. © 2023, Sociologicky Ustav SAV / Institute for Sociology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

Vaccine hesitancy and refusal during the Covid-19 pandemic in Italy: Individualistic claims or repoliticisation?

The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted new (or renewed) forms of conflict within a longer path of distrust and dissatisfaction towards politics and growing scepticism towards ‘official truths' and ‘official science'. Italy was the first European and Western country in which the pandemic spread in February 2020, and also one that adopted particularly stringent measures to contain the virus. In this scenario, a country in which political distrust was particularly diffused experienced an increase in institutional trust, accompanied by a strong demand for security from above. At the same time, radicalisation and distrust have grown among larger strata of the Italian population, leading to a significant polarisation of the public sphere. This essay critically embraces the perspective of the vast and plural universe of vaccine hesitancy and refusal (VHR) and, more generally, the materialisations of conflict concerning vaccines and policies aimed to address the Covid-19 pandemic. In the media and public debate, these protests have been mainly regarded as populist, driven by individualistic claims nurtured by indifference towards the collective good. We specifically explore whether VHR should be viewed exclusively as a sign of selfishness and populism or also as a form of repoliticisation around new issues and, in particular, as an expression of critical citizenship manifesting doubts about the decisions made by politicians, affirming a critique of the model of instrumental rationality, and advocating a pluralist debate on complex issues which directly affect individual life-choices and the body. Our study is based on 67 qualitative interviews with VHR citizens and a focus group with four key figures of the ‘Movimento 3V' (3VM), a minor Italian party advocating freedom of choice in relation to vaccines. © 2022 - University of Salento, SIBA

MEDIATIONS IN DISINFORMATION THAT INTERVENES THE TAKING OF PREVENTIVE MEASURES IN THE FACE OF THE COVID-19 HEALTH CRISIS

The lockdown situation has exposed citizens to a profusion of information about COVID-19, both official and unofficial, with different sources and varying degrees of reliability. Uncertainty spurs the search for information since the health of citizens depends on it. This study explores the mediation processes involved in building trust in actors linked to the COVID-19 pandemic and media consumption on the prevention measures that citizens take for their care. A representative sample of 1211 Mexican citizens was subject to the study. Among the main results is that citizens are very informed about COVID-19, engage in considerable media consumption, and have substantial institutional trust, particularly in non-governmental organizations. Regarding prevention measures, these are associated with people's trust in health sector employees. Likewise, regarding the acceptance of both true and fake news, the study showed that these are related to the preventive measures people take to mitigate the effects of the pandemic. © 2022 Contratexto. All rights reserved.

'15 days to slow the spread': Covid-19 and collective resilience

This essay is an exploration of how collective resilience can arise even in the worst of circumstances: a global pandemic that has adversely affected millions. Resilience can be a source of positivity, optimism and hope, and guide the kinds of behaviour to help overcome the challenges posed by COVID-19. This essay have identified three research pathways for collective resilience, but they are by no means exhaustive. People and communities will find other pathways to resilience;my hope is that this essay may spur future researchers to identify new possibilities, to good effect. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Institutional trust, scientific literacy, and information sources: What factors determine people's attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines of different origins in China?

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the different attitudes of Chinese residents toward COVID-19 vaccines produced in China and the United States in an emergency context, and then explored possible explanations for these different attitudes. Methods: Using data collected online in May 2021, we compared Chinese citizens' attitudes toward vaccines originating from China and the US and then adopted ordered logistic models to examine how trust in institutions, scientific literacy, and information sources influence their attitudes toward different vaccines. Results: A total of 2038 respondents completed the survey. Participants reported very different levels of trust in Chinese and American vaccines. The main finding of this paper is that individuals who trust in Chinese institutions, especially those who trust in domestic scientists, typically feel encouraged to also place their trust in domestic vaccines and to distrust those from the US. These individuals' higher evaluation of Chinese government performance makes them more willing to vaccinate with domestic vaccines and less likely to seek US vaccines. Levels of scientific literacy, furthermore, seem to have little influence on attitudes toward different vaccines. Meanwhile, respondents who acquire health information from biomedical journals are more likely to hold a positive view of US vaccines, and these individuals contribute to bridging the gap between levels of trust in Chinese and US vaccines. Conclusions: In contrast with previous findings about Chinese attitudes toward imported vaccines, our respondents are more convinced of the safety and effectiveness of domestic vaccines than of US ones. This trust gap does not arise out of actual disparity in the quality and safety of the different vaccines per se. Instead, it is a cognition concern that is closely bound up with individuals' trust in domestic institutions. People's attitudes toward vaccines of different origins in an emergency context are more influenced by socio-political beliefs than by concern with objective information and knowledge.

Determinants of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance in Mozambique: The role of institutional trust.

BACKGROUND: Vaccination plays an imperative role in protecting public health and preventing avoidable mortality. Yet, the reasons for vaccine hesitancy in African countries are not well understood. This study investigates the factors associated with the acceptance of COVID-19 vaccine in Mozambique, with a focus on the role of institutional trust. METHODS: The data came from the three waves of the COVID-19 Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices (KAP) survey which followed a cohort of 1,371 adults in Mozambique over six months (N = 3809). We examined vaccine acceptance based on three measurements: willingness to take vaccine, perceived vaccine efficacy, and perceived vaccine safety. We conducted multilevel regression analysis to investigate the trajectories of, and the association between institutional trust and vaccine acceptance. RESULTS: One third of the survey participants (37%) would definitely take the vaccine. Meanwhile, 31% believed the vaccine would prevent the COVID-19 infection, and 27% believed the vaccine would be safe. There was a significant decrease in COVID-19 vaccine acceptance between waves 1 and 3 of the survey. Institutional trust was consistently and strongly correlated with different measures of vaccine acceptance. There was a greater decline in vaccine acceptance in people with lower institutional trust. The positive correlation between institutional trust and vaccine acceptance was stronger in younger than older adults. Vaccine acceptance also varied by gender and marital status. CONCLUSIONS: Vaccine acceptance can be volatile even over short periods of time. Institutional trust is a central driver of vaccine acceptance and contributes to the resilience of the health system. Our study highlights the importance of health communication and building a trustful relationship between the general public and the institutions in the context of a global pandemic.

Transitioning to Online Teaching During the Pandemic Period: The Role of Innovation and Psychological Characteristics.

Given the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to the forced adoption of online teaching in several academic institutions across the world, we set out an objective in this paper to examine salient factors that may affect the decision to use online teaching by faculty members (teaching staff). We propose and validate a model based on an extended innovation diffusion theory and 284 online survey responses from Ghana and find that the attitude towards online teaching is predictably influenced by relative advantage and observability. Contrary to theory, complexity boosts rather than inhibits the attitude towards online teaching. The most salient predictors of willingness to use the mode of online teaching are attitude, observability, institutional trust, and compatibility. We conclude with discussions on the important implications for the scientific community and educational policymakers.