ArticlePloS one2020
Does social trust slow down or speed up the transmission of COVID-19?
Article in PloS one, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 44 citations in OpenAlex.
- Perceived Neighborhood Trust, Health Behaviors, and Metabolic Syndrome Among Middle-Aged and Older Chinese Adults: A Cross-Sectional Study.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Qualitative evaluation to improve participant engagement and retention in remote COVID-19 treatment trials.Discover public health · 2025Article
- 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
- Epidemic disease and the state: Is there a tradeoff between public health and liberty?Public choice · 2023Article
- Covid-19: did higher trust societies fare better?Discover social science and health · 2023Article
- Socio-Cultural Values Are Risk Factors for COVID-19-Related Mortality.Cross-cultural research : official journal of the Society for Cross-Cultural Research · 2022Article
- Resilience of countries to COVID-19 correlated with trust.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Corruption, public trust and medical autonomy in the public health sector of Montenegro: Taking stock of the COVID-19 influence.PloS one · 2022Article
- The impact of national values on the prevention and control of COVID-19: An empirical study.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- National health governance, science and the media: drivers of COVID-19 responses in Germany, Sweden and the UK in 2020.BMJ global health · 2021Review
- Unmasking the Ethics of Public Health Messaging in a Pandemic.Journal of bioethical inquiry · 2021Article
- Perception of Risk, Self-Efficacy and Social Trust during the Diffusion of Covid-19 in Italy.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
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Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Social trust has been an important mechanism in overcoming crises throughout history. Several societies are now emphasizing its role in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to investigate how variations in social trust across 68 countries are related to the transmission speed of COVID-19. Specifically, using cross-national index data from the World Value Survey, the study tests how variations in social trust across countries generate different time durations at which each country reaches the peak in terms of increases in new infections of COVID-19. Using data drawn between December 31, 2019 and July 31, 2020, this study found that in countries with a high level of social trust, particularly trust among ingroup members, or with a narrower or wider range than the intermediate range of trustees, the number of new infections tended to reach the first peak within a shorter time duration than in other countries. These results imply that in such societies, on the one hand, high cooperation among people to achieve common goals and strong compliance to social norms may allow them to begin neutralizing COVID-19 faster. On the other hand, however, the low risk perception and prevalence of cohesive relationships among people may lead to speedier transmission of COVID-19 before neutralization takes place.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.