COVID-19, Identity, and Institutional Trust

While the pandemic is undeniably a public health problem, it is also a social problem that has exacerbated preexisting social inequalities that critically fall along lines of race and ethnicity. Government policies and public adoption of behaviors to combat the virus' spread depend on a successful interplay of public policy, mass communication, and public attitudes toward government and fellow citizens. When trust between these actors breaks down or when trust barely existed in the first place, effective policy becomes an even greater challenge. Even after the worst of the pandemic passes, the effects of the pandemic on trust, views of institutions, and the polarization of public attitudes may remain. This project examines the confluence of the pandemic, disproportionate effects on Black and Latinx communities, and lower levels of trust in the government among Black and Latinx communities to investigate the link between crisis, institutional action, and public trust. We are uniquely situated to conduct such research. The researchers were part of a team that launched the COVID-19 Social Change Survey (CSCS) in March 2020, a nationally representative panel survey designed to preserve data for social science researchers about social, attitudinal, cultural, and behavioral changes resulting from the pandemic. The dataset is one of the most comprehensive nationwide, and we propose to leverage the CSCS panel to further examine how recovery efforts differentially effect different communities. We seek funding to leverage this panel to consider the extended consequences of the pandemic and examine racial and ethnic disparities resulting from the pandemic. Our primary objective for a new module is to explore to further examine how discrepancies in institutional trust and access to service perpetuate inequalities through the recovery period. While the survey design allows for exploration of a significant number of research questions related to public opinion and experiences during the pandemic, we focus primarily on three questions examining the unique burdens on African American and Latinx communities faced during the pandemic.