The social cohesion investment: Communities that invested in integration programmes are showing greater social cohesion in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Social cohesion can rise in the aftermath of natural disasters or mass tragedies, but this 'coming together' is often short-lived. The early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic witnessed marked increases in kindness and social connection, but as months passed social tensions re-emerged or grew anew. Thus local authorities faced persistent and evolving challenges. A cross-sectional survey (N = 2,924) examined perceptions of social cohesion while Britain was slowly emerging from its first national lockdown in June 2020 in six English local authorities that have prioritised investment in social cohesion over the last two years (including five 'integration areas') compared with three other areas that have not. We expected that social cohesion programmes would better equip people to tackle the various challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. We found a greater sense of social cohesion in the six local authorities (at the micro, meso and macro levels) than in other areas. This was manifested as higher levels of reported social activism, interpersonal trust and closer personal relationships, greater political trust and more positive attitudes towards immigrants. Findings are consistent with the proposition that investing in social cohesion underpins stronger and more connected and open communities, better able to cope with crisis situations.

Distrustful Complacency and the COVID-19 Vaccine: How Concern and Political Trust Interact to Affect Vaccine Hesitancy.

We test the hypothesis that COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is attributable to distrustful complacency-an interactive combination of low concern and low trust. Across two studies, 9,695 respondents from different parts of Britain reported their level of concern about COVID-19, trust in the UK government, and intention to accept or refuse the vaccine. Multilevel regression analysis, controlling for geographic area and relevant demographics, confirmed the predicted interactive effect of concern and trust. Across studies, respondents with both low trust and low concern were 10%-22% more vaccine hesitant than respondents with either high trust or high concern, and 26%-29% more hesitant than respondents with both high trust and high concern. Results hold equally among White, Black, and Muslim respondents, consistent with the view that regardless of mean-level differences, a common process underlies vaccine hesitancy, underlining the importance of tackling distrustful complacency both generally and specifically among unvaccinated individuals and populations.