IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp15961.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Health System Trust and Compliance with COVID-19 Restrictions

Author

Listed:
  • Costa-Font, Joan

    (London School of Economics)

  • Vilaplana-Prieto, Cristina

    (Universidad de Murcia)

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 influence 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 effect is driven by individuals over 45 years of age, and the opposite is true among younger cohorts. 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 the estimates is that RM is interpreted as a risk signal among those over 45, and as a signal of health-care system failure among younger age individuals.

Suggested Citation

  • Costa-Font, Joan & Vilaplana-Prieto, Cristina, 2023. "Health System Trust and Compliance with COVID-19 Restrictions," IZA Discussion Papers 15961, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15961
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp15961.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul Slovic, 1993. "Perceived Risk, Trust, and Democracy," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 13(6), pages 675-682, December.
    2. Hansen, Lars Peter, 1982. "Large Sample Properties of Generalized Method of Moments Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 1029-1054, July.
    3. Kleibergen, Frank & Paap, Richard, 2006. "Generalized reduced rank tests using the singular value decomposition," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 97-126, July.
    4. Hakhverdian, Armen & Mayne, Quinton, 2012. "Institutional Trust, Education, and Corruption: A Micro-Macro Interactive Approach," Scholarly Articles 9639965, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
    5. Marc Oliver Rieger & Mei Wang, 2022. "Trust in Government Actions During the COVID-19 Crisis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 159(3), pages 967-989, February.
    6. Katrin Schmelz, 2021. "Enforcement may crowd out voluntary support for COVID-19 policies, especially where trust in government is weak and in a liberal society," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 118(1), pages 2016385118-, January.
    7. Martial Foucault & Yann Algan & Daniel Cohen & Eva Davoine & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2021. "Trust in scientists in times of pandemic: Panel evidence from 12 countries," Post-Print hal-03423522, HAL.
    8. Bargain, Olivier & Aminjonov, Ulugbek, 2020. "Trust and compliance to public health policies in times of COVID-19," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    9. Elgar, Frank J. & Stefaniak, Anna & Wohl, Michael J.A., 2020. "The trouble with trust: Time-series analysis of social capital, income inequality, and COVID-19 deaths in 84 countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 263(C).
    10. Peter D. Lunn & Cameron A. Belton & Ciarán Lavin & Féidhlim P. McGowan & Shane Timmons & Deirdre A. Robertson, 2020. "Using behavioral science to help fight the Coronavirus," Journal of Behavioral Public Administration, Center for Experimental and Behavioral Public Administration, vol. 3(1).
    11. Sarracino, Francesco & Greyling, Talita & O'Connor, Kelsey J. & Peroni, Chiara & Rossouw, Stephanie, 2024. "Trust predicts compliance with COVID-19 containment policies: Evidence from ten countries using big data," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    12. Anna Adamecz-Völgyi & Ágnes Szabó-Morvai, 2021. "Confidence in public institutions is critical in containing the COVID-19 pandemic," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 2126, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    13. Michelle Marcus & Pedro H. C. Sant’Anna, 2021. "The Role of Parallel Trends in Event Study Settings: An Application to Environmental Economics," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(2), pages 235-275.
    14. Malcolm Sambridge & Andrew Jackson, 2020. "National COVID numbers — Benford’s law looks for errors," Nature, Nature, vol. 581(7809), pages 384-384, May.
    15. Gisela Wachinger & Ortwin Renn & Chloe Begg & Christian Kuhlicke, 2013. "The Risk Perception Paradox—Implications for Governance and Communication of Natural Hazards," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 33(6), pages 1049-1065, June.
    16. Green, Mark A. & Subramanian, S.V. & Vickers, Daniel & Dorling, Danny, 2015. "Internal migration, area effects and health: Does where you move to impact upon your health?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 136, pages 27-34.
    17. Goodman-Bacon, Andrew, 2021. "Difference-in-differences with variation in treatment timing," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 254-277.
    18. Catherine Mei Ling Wong & Olivia Jensen, 2020. "The paradox of trust: perceived risk and public compliance during the COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(7-8), pages 1021-1030, August.
    19. Gilson, Lucy, 2003. "Trust and the development of health care as a social institution," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 56(7), pages 1453-1468, April.
    20. Sun, Liyang & Abraham, Sarah, 2021. "Estimating dynamic treatment effects in event studies with heterogeneous treatment effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 175-199.
    21. Matthew Singer & Christopher Anderson, 2008. "The Sensitive Left and the Impervious Right: Multilevel Models and the Politics of Inequality, Ideology, and Legitimacy in Europe," LIS Working papers 477, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    22. Hetherington, Marc J., 1998. "The Political Relevance of Political Trust," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 92(4), pages 791-808, December.
    23. Mohseni, Mohabbat & Lindstrom, Martin, 2007. "Social capital, trust in the health-care system and self-rated health: The role of access to health care in a population-based study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(7), pages 1373-1383, April.
    24. Iacus, Stefano M. & King, Gary & Porro, Giuseppe, 2012. "Causal Inference without Balance Checking: Coarsened Exact Matching," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 1-24, January.
    25. Piyapong Janmaimool & Tsunemi Watanabe, 2014. "Evaluating Determinants of Environmental Risk Perception for Risk Management in Contaminated Sites," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-23, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Costa-Font, Joan & Vilaplana-Prieto, Cristina, 2023. "Trusting the Health System and COVID 19 Restriction Compliance," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    2. Costa-Font, Joan & Vilaplana-Prieto, Cristina, 2023. "Trusting the health system and COVID 19 restriction compliance," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118267, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Costa-Font, Joan & Jiménez-Martín, Sergi & Vilaplana-Prieto, Cristina, 2022. "Do Public Caregiving Subsidies and Supports affect the Provision of Care and Transfers?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    4. Joan Costa-Font & Martin Knapp & Cristina Vilaplana-Prieto, 2023. "The ‘welcomed lockdown’ hypothesis? Mental wellbeing and mobility restrictions," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 24(5), pages 679-699, July.
    5. Costa-Font, Joan & Knapp, Martin & Vilaplana-Prieto, Cristina, 2023. "The ‘welcomed lockdown’ hypothesis? Mental wellbeing and mobility restrictions," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 115323, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Anna Petherick & Rafael Goldszmidt & Eduardo B. Andrade & Rodrigo Furst & Thomas Hale & Annalena Pott & Andrew Wood, 2021. "A worldwide assessment of changes in adherence to COVID-19 protective behaviours and hypothesized pandemic fatigue," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 5(9), pages 1145-1160, September.
    7. Guignet, Dennis & Jenkins, Robin R. & Belke, James & Mason, Henry, 2023. "The property value impacts of industrial chemical accidents," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    8. David Roodman, 2022. "Schooling and Labor Market Consequences of School Construction in Indonesia: Comment," Papers 2207.09036, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2024.
    9. Étienne Dagorn & Martina Dattilo & Matthieu Pourieux, 2022. "Preferences matter! Political Responses to the COVID-19 and Population’s Preferences," Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes & University of Caen) 2022-01, Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes, University of Caen and CNRS.
    10. Roth, Jonathan & Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C. & Bilinski, Alyssa & Poe, John, 2023. "What’s trending in difference-in-differences? A synthesis of the recent econometrics literature," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 2218-2244.
    11. Leone, Fabrizio, 2021. "Foreign Ownership and Robot Adoption," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Docweb) 2111, CEPREMAP.
    12. Mensah, Edouard R. & Filipski, Mateusz J., 2022. "Saving for a rainy day: the impact of natural disasters on savings rates," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322266, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    13. Riveros-Gavilanes, J. M., 2023. "A simple test of parallel pre-trends for Differences-in-Differences," MPRA Paper 119367, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2023.
    14. Clément de Chaisemartin & Xavier D’Haultfœuille, 2023. "Two-way fixed effects and differences-in-differences with heterogeneous treatment effects: a survey," The Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 26(3), pages 1-30.
    15. Yun Yang & Feng Hao & Xingchen Meng, 2024. "How does the national e-commerce demonstration city pilot policy boost economic growth? Evidence from China," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 51(4), pages 929-975, November.
    16. Smart, Rosanna & Powell, David & Pacula, Rosalie Liccardo & Peet, Evan & Abouk, Rahi & Davis, Corey S., 2024. "Investigating the complexity of naloxone distribution: Which policies matter for pharmacies and potential recipients," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    17. Lu, Wenyi & Zhuang, Shilong & Fan, Siyuan, 2024. "Losing trust when pursuing development: How automation hindered political trust in China?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 218(C), pages 406-422.
    18. Miquel Oliu-Barton & Bary S. R. Pradelski & Nicolas Woloszko & Lionel Guetta-Jeanrenaud & Philippe Aghion & Patrick Artus & Arnaud Fontanet & Philippe Martin & Guntram B. Wolff, 2022. "The effect of COVID certificates on vaccine uptake, health outcomes, and the economy," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-13, December.
    19. Marc Oliver Rieger & Mei Wang, 2022. "Trust in Government Actions During the COVID-19 Crisis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 159(3), pages 967-989, February.
    20. Dalia Ghanem & Pedro H. C. Sant'Anna & Kaspar Wuthrich, 2022. "Selection and parallel trends," Papers 2203.09001, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2024.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Eurobarometer; lockdown; mortality; healthcare system trust; difference in differences; COVID-19;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I13 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Insurance, Public and Private
    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15961. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.