Article Trust in public authorities nine months after the COVID-19 outbreak: A cross-national study Daicia Price 1* , Tore Bonsaksen 2,3 , Mary Ruffolo 1 , Janni Leung 4 , Vivian Chiu 4 , Hilde Thygesen 3,5 , Mariyana Schoultz 6 , and Amy Østertun Geirdal 8 1 School of Social Work, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA; mruffolo@umich.edu (M.C.R.); daiciars@umich.edu (D.P.) 2 Department of Health and Nursing Science, Faculty of Social and Health Sciences, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, 2418 Elverum, Norway; tore.bonsaksen@inn.no 3 Faculty of Health Studies, VID Specialized University, 4306 Sandnes, Norway; hilde.thygesen@oslomet.no 4 Faculty of Health and Behavioural Science, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia; j.leung1@uq.edu.au (JL); vivian.chiu@uq.net.au; (VC) 5 Prosthetics and Orthotics, Department of Occupational Therapy, Faculty of Health Sciences, Oslo Metropolitan University, 0130 Oslo, Norway 6 Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST, UK; mariyana.schoultz@northumbria.ac.uk 7 Department of Social Work, Faculty of Social Sciences, Oslo Metropolitan University, 0130 Oslo, Norway; amyoge@oslomet.no * Correspondence: daiciars@umich.edu; Abstract: This study aimed to examine trust in information provided by public authorities and fi- nancial measures put in place to address the impact of COVID-19. Using a cross-national approach among four Western countries; the United States of America, Norway, Australia, and the United Kingdom provides an analysis of responses related to trust and how they were associated with age group, gender, education level, employment status, size of place of residence, infection status, and social media use. When controlling for all included variables in logistic regression analyses, the like- lihood of having trust in the public authorities’ information was higher for women, those with higher levels of education, and those living in urban areas. Being infected with the coronavirus, and spending more time daily on social media was associated with lower likelihood reporting trust in information. Although policies implemented to respond to economic concerns varied cross-nation- ally, higher age, identifying as female, being employed, living in a city, and lower levels of social media usage were associated with higher likelihood of trusting in the financial measures put in place to counteract the economic effects of COVID-19. Keywords: coronavirus, cross-national study, pandemic, public authorities, social media, trust 1. Introduction Distrust in government and public authorities has historical precedence (Chanley et al., 2000). Trust in government has declined over the past 20 years (Dalton, 2005, Christensen & Lægreid, 2005). When considering responses to public health, natural disasters, and so- cial crises, questioning of public authorities' information delivered and economic response to address the impact of crises' have been well documented (Hanfling et al., 2012; Smith & Silva, 2015; OECD, 2013). On January 5, 2020, the World Health Organization published a public statement to share that a cluster of illnesses had been identified in China. COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic that required immediate national responses to protect pub- lic health and safety on March 21, 2020. Western countries responded in various but largely similar ways, including limiting travel, requiring face coverings, and closing of businesses and schools. These actions resulted in many countries experiencing economic distress and Preprints (www.preprints.org) | NOT PEER-REVIEWED | Posted: 18 June 2021 doi:10.20944/preprints202106.0469.v1 © 2021 by the author(s). Distributed under a Creative Commons CC BY license.