Meredith Schwartz: It Takes Two – Trusting the Public in Public Health Messaging and Policy

Meredith Schwartz (Ryerson University)

Much of the existing public health literature describes strategies by which health authorities can build and maintain trust from the public. Typically, this relationship is assumed to be one-directional and instrumental: the public should trust health authorities because this will increase public cooperation and compliance. However, trust is a two-way relationship, and I argue that it is a mistake to expect the public to trust the claims and recommendations of health authorities unless that trust is reciprocated. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve seen several situations in which authorities’ lack of trust toward the public has undermined public confidence. Consider: early messaging about mask efficacy, much of which was delayed or incomplete due to a fear that the public would gain false confidence if given full information; Donald Trump’s infamously false claims about the pandemic’s likely spread, driven in part by a stated desire not to panic the public; the proposals by some universities to require that students wear tracking devices, which imply that students will fail to follow guidelines in the absence of direct supervision. I examine each of these examples, arguing that they illustrate the importance of treating public trust as reciprocal and relational.

This event will take place virtually over Zoom. Please register in advance to receive the link to attend.