Trusting the health system and COVID 19 restriction compliance

Costa-Font, Joan ORCID: 0000-0001-7174-7919 and Vilaplana-Prieto, Cristina (2023) Trusting the health system and COVID 19 restriction compliance. Economics and Human Biology, 49. ISSN 1570-677X

Text (Trusting the health system and COVID 19 restriction compliance) - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (651kB)

• Author
• Scopus publication

Abstract

We examine the extent to which exposure to higher relative COVID-19 mortality (RM), influences health system trust (HST), and whether changes in HST explain the perceived ease of compliance with pandemic restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on evidence from two representative surveys covering all regions of 28 European countries before and after the first COVID-19 wave, and using a difference in differences strategy together with Coarsened Exact Matching (CEM), we document that living in a region with higher RM during the first wave of the pandemic increased HST. However, the positive effect of RM on HST is driven by individuals over 45 years of age, and the opposite effect is found among younger cohorts. Furthemore, we find that a higher HST reduces the costs of complying with COVID-19 restrictions, but only so long as excess mortality does not exceed the average by more than 20%, at which point the ease of complying with COVID-19 restrictions significantly declines, offsetting the positive effect of trust in the healthcare system. Our interpretation of these estimates is that a higher RM is interpreted as a risk signal among those over 45, and as a signal of health-care system failure among younger age individuals.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/economics-an...
Additional Information:	© 2023 The Authors
Divisions:	Health Policy
Subjects:	R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology
JEL classification:	I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I1 - Health > I10 - General Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics; Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology > Z10 - General
Date Deposited:	24 Feb 2023 16:39
Last Modified:	18 Nov 2024 19:42
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/118267

Actions (login required)

View Item