ArticleJournal of global health2023
In the COVID-19 pandemic, who did we trust? An eight-country cross-sectional study.
Article in Journal of global health, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 10 citations in OpenAlex.
- Why do people trust (or mistrust) health organizations? A systematic review.International journal for equity in health · 2026Pooled it
- Drivers of health polarization during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review.Science advances · 2025Pooled it
- From Individual Grain Boundaries to Irregular Grain Networks: Drift-Diffusion Simulation of Polycrystalline Silicon Solar Cells.Nanomaterials (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- "They wanted to, but they just couldn't get there": GBA + implementation and gaps during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada.International journal for equity in health · 2025Article
- Engaging community health center advisors to identify research priorities for health equity.Journal of clinical and translational science · 2025Article
- Adherence to COVID-19 measures and the associated factors: evidence from a two-wave longitudinal study in Singapore.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Developing community resilience in the face of COVID-19: case study from the Estrie region, Canada.Health promotion international · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Trust is a key determinant of health, but has been undermined by the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated infodemic. Using data from eight countries, we aimed to epidemiologically describe levels of trust in health, governments, news media organisations, and experts, and measure the impact of political orientation and COVID-19 information sources on participant's levels of trust. Methods: We simultaneously conducted a stratified randomised online cross-sectional study across eight countries on adults aged ≥18 years between 6 and 18 November 2020. We employed crude and adjusted weighted regression analyses. Results: We included 9027 adults with a mean age of 47 years (range = 18-99), of whom 4667 (51.7%) were female. Trust in health experts ranked highest across all countries (mean (x̄) = 7.83; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 7.79-7.88), while trust in politicians ranked lowest (x̄ = 5.34; 95% CI = 5.28, 5.40). In adjusted analyses, political orientation and utilised information sources were significantly associated with trust. Individuals using higher levels of health information sources trusted health authorities more than those using lower levels (mean difference = 1.12; 95% CI = 1.02, 1.14). Similarly, individuals using higher levels of government information sources (mean difference = 1.55; 95% CI = 1.43, 1.64) and those using higher levels of new media information sources (mean difference = 1.17; 95% CI = 1.06, 1.28) had highest trust in governments/politicians and news media, respectively. However, there was little difference in trust in health, government, or news media between individuals using higher or lower levels of social media information sources. Conclusions: Trust is a key determinant of health, but has been politically fragile during this infodemic. High compliance with public health measures is key to combatting infectious diseases. In terms of people's trust, our findings suggest that politicians and governments worldwide should coordinate their response with health experts and authorities to maximise the success of public health measures.
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