Mobilizing stakeholders to build trust in public health systems in post-pandemic West Africa

"Trust" might arguably be the most studied social phenomena in the wake of COVID-19. In times of public health crisis-such as the COVID-19 pandemic-tapping into personal and institutional trust at multiple scales is paramount to disseminating critical information, maintaining confidence in disease containment measures, and eliciting behavioral changes among the citizenry. Mistrust, on the other hand, can have the opposite effect and lead to weak response to the pandemic. Many studies in different parts of the world have shown that without aspects of institutional, interpersonal, and political trust, politicians and public health professionals and scientist struggle to convince people to follow recommendations and instructions related to COVID-19. While the renewed interest in trust is refreshing for societies in a pandemic recovery world, the value of trust during a pandemic lies not in its associated outcomes, but in something much more fundamental-and that is how we conserve or strengthen social and political trust where it exists and how do we build trust where it is found to be low. This research will use a combination of quantitative and participatory methods to explore and identify strategies for sustaining or building trust in public health institutions in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), specifically Ghana, Guinea, and Liberia. Governments and public health institutions in SSA will be better positioned to effectively overcome the COVID-19 crisis and build inclusive and equitable recovery societies if they have the evidence necessary to repair, sustain, and build trust and political capital while strengthening the social contract between public health institutions and citizens.