Accepted for/Published in: Online Journal of Public Health Informatics
Date Submitted: May 20, 2025
Date Accepted: Aug 1, 2025
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Trust and Information Engagement Reconsidered: Unpacking the Role of Emotion in Public Response in the Early Stage of Health Crisis in China
ABSTRACT
Background:
Analyzing the COVID-19 pandemic continues to provide valuable insights into crisis management and risk communication, especially through retrospective studies that enable a more comprehensive understanding of the trajectories of health crises. Emotional responses played a crucial role in shaping how people processed information and developed trust in various objects during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Data collected during this early phase holds particular significance due to the rare opportunity to access national samples in China during an emerging public health crisis.
Objective:
This study investigates how negative emotions influence online engagement with information, and trust in four distinct entities: government, scientists, healthcare providers, and others.
Methods:
A nationwide web-based survey was conducted in China from January 31 to February 9, 2020, involving 1,568 adult participants. Questions related to negative emotions, online information engagement, and trust in four different entities (government, scientists, other people, and healthcare providers) during the pandemic were asked. Mediation analyses were performed to test the associations between the examined variables. We used a 95% bootstrap CI approach to estimate the mediation effects.
Results:
This study reveals that negative emotions not only had a direct effect on trust but also indirectly fostered trust in the government and scientists through increased information engagement. There is a positive association (b = .219, SE = .023, p < .001) between negative emotions and information engagement. Also, individuals experiencing more negative emotions, tend to trust more in the government (b = .074, S.E. = .023, p < .01) and scientists (b = .054, SE = .018, p < .01). However, this effect did not extend to trust in healthcare providers or interpersonal trust.
Conclusions:
These findings highlight the different pathways through which emotions and information behavior affect trust in crises, offering critical lessons for future public health emergencies and risk communication.
Citation
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Copyright
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