Health Policy Manag.  2023 Mar;33(1):65-74. 10.4332/KJHPA.2023.33.1.65.

Effect of Trust in Government’s Ability to Respond to COVID-19 on Regional Incidence and Mortality in Korea

• Choi H
• Kim J

• KMID: 2549087
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4332/KJHPA.2023.33.1.65

Abstract

Background
The government should find ways to improve the effectiveness of the policies to control the incidence and mortality of the infectious disease. The purpose of this study is to find out whether the trust in the government’s ability to respond to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) affects the quarantine and hospitalization rate, incidence and mortality rates of COVID-19 and quarantine rules compliance in each region of Korea.
Methods
The subject of this study is 250 regions (si · gun · gu) in Korea, and the 2020 Community Health Survey data from the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) was used for the trust in the government’s ability to respond to COVID-19, quarantine and hospitalization rate and quarantine rules compliance. For the incidence and mortality of COVID-19 and community factors, data was obtained from KDCA and Korean Statistical Information Service. Path analysis was used to find out the degree of inter-variable influence, and community factors (socio-demographic factors, community health factors, and health behavior factors) were used as control variables.
Results
The regional disparity in key variables showed that the late pandemic period cumulative incidence and mortality of COVID-19 were large, while the early pandemic period quarantine and hospitalization rate and quarantine rules compliance were small. Path analysis showed that when community factors were controlled, the trust in government was statistically significant in all of the late pandemic period cumulative incidence (p=0.024) and mortality (p=0.017), and quarantine rules compliance (p=0.011).
Conclusion
This study revealed that the higher the trust in the government’s ability to respond to COVID-19, the lower the COVID-19 mortality and the higher the quarantine rules compliance at the regional level in Korea. This suggests that when the government implements healthcare policies to control infectious diseases, it is necessary to consider trust to improve policy compliance and control the mortality of the disease and maintain high trust through several effective methods.

Keyword

COVID-19; Trust in government; Policy compliance; Health policy