COVID-19 and Masking Disparities: Qualitative Analysis of Trust on the CDC’s Facebook Page

Andrea Laurent-Simpson ()
Additional contact information
Andrea Laurent-Simpson: Department of Sociology, Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75205, USA

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 12, 1-18

Abstract: This exploratory paper examines individual levels of risk assessment as impacting institutional trust in the CDC while also contributing to disparities in expressed willingness to mask early in the COVID-19 pandemic. Using both content and thematic analysis of the CDC’s Facebook (FB) page from April 2020 and Gidden’s modern risk society theory, I consider how social media (SM) users retrospectively perceived a dramatic change in public health (PH) advisory—from the CDC advising against masking in February 2020 (Time 1) to advising the use of “do-it-yourself” (DIY) cloth masking in April 2020 (Time 2)—through a lens of prior, self-guided research. Expressed “knowledge” of masking as preventative (or not) yielded unwavering and sometimes increasing distrust in the CDC based on user perception of the “correct” advisory, regardless of the CDC’s position at Time 1 or Time 2. Simultaneously, disparities in masking behaviors appeared to be driven not by CDC guidance but by this same self-guided research. I show this via three themes: (1) claims of ineffectiveness for DIY masking (do not trust CDC now—no masking from the start); (2) conflict between the first and second CDC advisories on masking (do not trust CDC—either already masking anyway or will now); (3) disappointed in the CDC for length of time taken to make a DIY mask recommendation (do not trust CDC—either already masking anyway or will mask now). I discuss the imperative nature of two-way engagement with SM users by PH rather than using SM as a one-way mode of advisory dissemination. This and other recommendations may decrease disparities in preventative behaviors based on individual-level risk assessment as well as increase institutional trust and transparency.

Keywords: risk; institutional trust; COVID-19; emerging infectious disease; social media; masking (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/12/6062/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/12/6062/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:12:p:6062-:d:1165068

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().