Policy liberalism and source of news predict pandemic-related health behaviors and trust in the scientific community

In March of 2020, the United States was confronted with a major public health crisis caused by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). This study aimed to identify what factors influence adherence to recently implemented public health measures such as mask-wearing and social distancing, trust of scientific organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) on information pertaining to the pandemic, and level of perceived risk. Data were collected from June 30, 2020 to July 22, 2020 on 951 adult residents of the United States using an online survey through Microsoft Forms. Multiple linear regression was used to identify the strongest predictors for compliance to pandemic-related health measures, trust in the scientific community, and perceived risk. Results showed that the strongest predictor of all variables of interest was degree of policy liberalism. Additionally, participants who consumed more conservative news media conformed less to the pandemic health guidelines and had less trust in the scientific community. Degree of policy liberalism was found to have a significant moderating effect on the relationship between gender and conformity to pandemic-related health behaviors. These findings have concerning implications that factors like degree of policy liberalism and source of news are more influential in predicting adherence to life-saving health measures than established risk factors like pre-existing health conditions.