Public health and public trust: Survey evidence from the Ebola Virus Disease epidemic in Liberia
Name
SSRN-id2864029.pdf
Description
Accepted version
Size
1.69 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
5f1b3d85c7c6018cded10bbb3c87707d
Author(s)
Blair, Robert A.
Morse, Benjamin Sherman
Tsai, Lily L.
Date Issued
January 2017
Journal
Social Science & Medicine
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Citation
Blair, Robert A. et al. "Public health and public trust: Survey evidence from the Ebola Virus Disease epidemic in Liberia." Social Science & Medicine 172 (January 2017): 89-97 © 2016 Elsevier Ltd
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Trust in government has long been viewed as an important determinant of citizens' compliance with public health policies, especially in times of crisis. Yet evidence on this relationship remains scarce, particularly in the developing world. We use results from a representative survey conducted during the 2014–15 Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) epidemic in Monrovia, Liberia to assess the relationship between trust in government and compliance with EVD control interventions. We find that respondents who expressed low trust in government were much less likely to take precautions against EVD in their homes, or to abide by government-mandated social distancing mechanisms designed to contain the spread of the virus. They were also much less likely to support potentially contentious control policies, such as “safe burial” of EVD-infected bodies. Contrary to stereotypes, we find no evidence that respondents who distrusted government were any more or less likely to understand EVD's symptoms and transmission pathways. While only correlational, these results suggest that respondents who refused to comply may have done so not because they failed to understand how EVD is transmitted, but rather because they did not trust the capacity or integrity of government institutions to recommend precautions and implement policies to slow EVD's spread. We also find that respondents who experienced hardships during the epidemic expressed less trust in government than those who did not, suggesting the possibility of a vicious cycle between distrust, non-compliance, hardships and further distrust. Finally, we find that respondents who trusted international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) were no more or less likely to support or comply with EVD control policies, suggesting that while INGOs can contribute in indispensable ways to crisis response, they cannot substitute for government institutions in the eyes of citizens. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for future public health crises.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.11.016
