ArticleGlobalization and health2022
The effect of COVID-19 on public confidence in the World Health Organization: a natural experiment among 40 countries.
Article in Globalization and health, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 9 citations in OpenAlex.
- Why do people trust (or mistrust) health organizations? A systematic review.International journal for equity in health · 2026Pooled it
- Data gaps affecting health-related sustainable development goal indicators.Bulletin of the World Health Organization · 2026Article
- Healthcare professionals' trust in health authorities throughout COVID-19: a social media analysis.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Impact of a pandemic shock on unmet medical needs of middle-aged and older adults in 10 countries.BMJ health & care informatics · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAt a time when a highly contagious pandemic and global political and economic turmoil are intertwined, worldwide cooperation under the leadership of an international organization has become increasingly important. This study aimed to estimate the effect of COVID-19 on public confidence in the World Health Organization (WHO), which will serve as a reference for other international organizations regarding the maintenance of their credibility in crisis management and ability to play a greater role in global health governance.
methodsWe obtained individual data from the World Values Survey (WVS). A total of 44,775 participants aged 16 and older from 40 countries in six WHO regions were included in this study. The COVID-19 pandemic was used as a natural experiment. We obtained difference-in-differences (DID) estimates of the pandemic's effects by exploiting temporal variation in the timing of COVID-19 exposure across participants interviewed from 2017 to 2020 together with the geographical variation in COVID-19 severity at the country level. Public confidence in the WHO was self-reported by the respondents.
resultsAmong the participants, 28,087 (62.73%) reported having confidence in the WHO. The DID estimates showed that the COVID-19 pandemic could significantly decrease the likelihood of people reporting confidence in the WHO after controlling for multiple covariates (adjusted OR 0.54, 95% CI: 0.49-0.61), especially during the global outbreak (0.35, 0.24-0.50). The effect was found in both younger individuals (0.58, 0.51-0.66) and older adults (0.49, 0.38-0.63) and in both males (0.47, 0.40-0.55) and females (0.62, 0.53-0.72), with a vulnerability in males (adjusted P for interaction = 0.008).
conclusionOur findings are relevant regarding the impact of COVID-19 on people's beliefs about social institutions of global standing, highlighting the need for the WHO and other international organizations to shoulder the responsibility of global development for the establishment and maintenance of public credibility in the face of emergencies, as well as the prevention of confidence crises.
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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.