Evidence map›Paper›PMID 37848848›Full record

ArticleBMC public health2023

Development and validation of the Trust in Government measure (TGM).

Kathleen E Burns, Patrick Brown, Michael Calnan, Paul R Ward, Jerrica Little, Gustavo S Betini, Christopher M Perlman, Helena Godinho Nascimento, Samantha B Meyer

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in BMC public health, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
3.6field-weighted citation impact, top 7% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

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.

2 · The registry

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.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed, 13 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
  2. "Just be honest with us": A qualitative analysis of Canadians' public trust during the COVID-19 pandemic.Canadian journal of public health = Revue canadienne de sante publique · 2026
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

9 authors at 3 institutions in 4 countries.

Kathleen E BurnsSchool of Public Health Sciences, University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada.
Patrick BrownDepartment of Sociology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 1012 WX, Netherlands.
Michael CalnanSchool of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, University of Kent, Canterbury, CT2 7NB, UK.
Paul R WardResearch Centre for Public Health, Equity and Human Flourishing, Torrens University, 88 Wakefield St, Adelaide, SA, 5000, Australia.
Jerrica LittleSchool of Public Health Sciences, University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada.
Gustavo S BetiniSchool of Public Health Sciences, University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada.
Christopher M PerlmanSchool of Public Health Sciences, University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada.
Helena Godinho NascimentoSchool of Public Health Sciences, University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada.
Samantha B MeyerSchool of Public Health Sciences, University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada. samantha.meyer@uwaterloo.ca.
University of Waterloo · CAUniversity of Amsterdam · NLUniversity of Kent · GB

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundTrust in government is associated with health behaviours and is an important consideration in population health interventions. While there is a reported decline in public trust in government across OECD countries, the tools used to measure trust are limited in their use for informing action to (re)build trust, and have limitations related to reliability and validity. To address the limitations of existing measures available to track public trust, the aim of the present work was to develop a new measure of trust in government.

methodsFifty-six qualitative interviews (Aug-Oct 2021; oversampling for equity-deserving populations) were conducted to design a national survey, including factor analyses and validation testing (N = 878; June 1-14th 2022) in Canada.

resultsThe measure demonstrated strong internal consistency (α = 0.96) and test validity (CFI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.09, SRMR = 0.03), suggesting that trust in government can be measured as a single underlying construct. It also demonstrated strong criterion validity, as measured by significant (p < 0.0001) associations of scores with vaccine hesitancy, vaccine conspiracy beliefs, COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs, trust in public health messaging about COVID-19, and trust in public health advice about COVID-19. We present the Trust in Government Measure (TGM); a 13-item unidimensional measure of trust in Federal government.

conclusionsThis measure can be used within high-income countries, particularly member countries within the OECD already in support of using tools to collect, publish and compare statistics. Our measure should be used by researchers and policy makers to measure trust in government as a key indicator of societal and public health.

Indexed as

COVID-19Federal GovernmentGovernmentHumansReproducibility of ResultsTrustFederalGovernmentMeasureOECDTrustValidation

Identifiers

PMID37848848
PMCPMC10583387
OpenAlexW4387705418

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.