ArticleSocial science & medicine (1982)2020
The trouble with trust: Time-series analysis of social capital, income inequality, and COVID-19 deaths in 84 countries.
Article in Social science & medicine (1982), 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 99 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
99 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Gini coefficient, GDP per capita and COVID-19 mortality: a systematic review of ecologic studies.BMC public health · 2025Pooled it
- Becoming resilient: Community-driven change and the Civic Capacity Index.American journal of community psychology · 2026Article
- An Ecological Study on the Mortality Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic According to Country Development Status and Pandemic Years.Epidemiologia (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Assessing the relationship between community resilience and health outcomes: an observational local-authority level study in England.Journal of epidemiology and community health · 2026Observational
- Association of COVID-19 outcomes with measures of institutional and interpersonal trust: an ecological analysis using national data from 61 countries.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Trust in doctors, social support, and belief in COVID-19 misinformation.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Social capital and COVID-19 vaccination in prisons: a survey of attitudes, beliefs, and motivations.Journal of public health (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
- Social capital as a protective resource in times of social crisis-lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. A mixed-method study protocol.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Income and Sex Moderate the Association Between Population Density and Reproduction: A Multilevel Analysis of Life History Strategies Across 23 Nations.Archives of sexual behavior · 2025Article
- Social Cohesion and COVID-19: Integrative Review.Interactive journal of medical research · 2024Review
- Building public trust in preparation for future health shocks: a research agenda.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2024Article
- Social trust and COVID-19 mortality in the United States: lessons in planning for future pandemics using data from the general social survey.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Effects of human inequality and urbanization on ecological well-being performance: A System-GMM analysis.Heliyon · 2024Article
- COVID-19 and Contraceptive Use in Two African Countries: Examining Conflicting Pressures on Women.Population and development review · 2024Article
- The impact of social cohesion and risk communication on excess mortality due to COVID-19 in 213 countries: a retrospective analysis.BMC public health · 2024Article
- The effect of adaptive capacity on resilience to the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-country analysis.Jamba (Potchefstroom, South Africa) · 2024Article
- The Politicization of the COVID-19 Pandemic.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2024Review
- COVID-19 vaccine intercountry distribution inequality and its underlying factors: a combined concentration index analysis and multiple linear regression analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Article
- [We must not remain blind to equity: lessons to be learned from the COVID-19 pandemic in the AmericasDeixar de ignorar a equidade: lições a aprender com a pandemia de COVID-19 nas Américas].Revista panamericana de salud publica = Pan American journal of public health · 2024Article
39 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Can social contextual factors explain international differences in the spread of COVID-19? It is widely assumed that social cohesion, public confidence in government sources of health information and general concern for the welfare of others support health advisories during a pandemic and save lives. We tested this assumption through a time-series analysis of cross-national differences in COVID-19 mortality during an early phase of the pandemic. Country data on income inequality and four dimensions of social capital (trust, group affiliations, civic responsibility and confidence in public institutions) were linked to data on COVID-19 deaths in 84 countries. Associations with deaths were examined using Poisson regression with population-averaged estimators. During a 30-day period after recording their tenth death, mortality was positively related to income inequality, trust and group affiliations and negatively related to social capital from civic engagement and confidence in state institutions. These associations held in bivariate and mutually controlled regression models with controls for population size, age and wealth. The results indicate that societies that are more economically unequal and lack capacity in some dimensions of social capital experienced more COVID-19 deaths. Social trust and belonging to groups were associated with more deaths, possibly due to behavioural contagion and incongruence with physical distancing policy. Some countries require a more robust public health response to contain the spread and impact of COVID-19 due to economic and social divisions within them.
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