Abstract

This study investigates whether trust in government policies has a mediation effect between the students’ perception of COVID-19 health risk and their life satisfaction. In order to test the mediation effect, this study utilizes data collected from undergraduate students at Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico by means of online survey. The survey yielded 95 usable data out of 97. The valid results were tested via generalized linear model (GLM) Mediation approach for the mediation. Empirical findings of Delta method affirm the mediation (estimate = 0.4445, β = 0.474, z = 3.699, p < .001) role of trust in government as a mediator between students’ perception of COVID-19 health risk and their life satisfaction. In other words, Mexican undergraduate students are of the view that trusting government plays a crucial role as a mediator between their perception of coronavirus health risk and life satisfaction. These findings may guide the governments’ policy making efforts and motivate them to support their initiatives with trust-building efforts.

Key words:
COVID-19; Educational innovation; Health risk; Higher education; Life satisfaction; Trust in government policies

Resumo

Este estudo investiga se a confiança nas políticas governamentais tem um efeito de mediação na percepção dos estudantes sobre o risco de saúde da COVID-19 e a satisfação de vida. A fim de testar o efeito de mediação, o estudo utiliza dados recolhidos de estudantes universitários do Tecnológico de Monterrey, no México. O inquérito produziu 95 dados utilizáveis de um total de 97. Os resultados válidos foram testados por meio da abordagem de mediação do modelo linear generalizado (GLM). Os resultados empíricos do método Delta afirmam (estimativa = 0,4445, β = 0,474, z = 3,699, p < .001) o papel de confiança no governo como mediador entre a percepção dos estudantes sobre o risco de saúde da COVID-19 e sua satisfação de vida. Em outras palavras, para os estudantes de graduação mexicanos a confiança no governo desempenha papel crucial como mediador entre suas percepções sobre o risco de saúde do coronavírus e a satisfação de vida. As conclusões do estudo podem orientar os esforços dos governos na elaboração de políticas e motivá-los a apoiar iniciativas de criação de confiança.

Palavras-chave:
COVID-19; Inovação educacional; Risco de saúde; Ensino superior; Satisfação de vida; Confiança nas políticas governamentais

Introduction

Since the first coronavirus cases started, governments have been trying to mitigate the effects of the outbreak. While some regimes follow strict restrictions and implement isolation measures, others prefer to use alternative methods like smart lockdowns and socio-economic programs following the medical advisory boards’ recommendations and international organizations such as World Health Organization¹1 Ar AY, Abbas A. Government ICT-based cross sectoral collaboration strategy for financial support of low-income families during the COVID-19 pandemic. Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance 2020; 560-563. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3428502.3428586
http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3428502.342858... ^,22 Zhou K, Xin G. Who are the front-runners? Unravelling local government responses to containing the COVID-19 pandemic in China. China Review 2021; 21(1):37-54.. Despite these efforts, the success of preventative measures highly depends on how societies perceive fairness of policy making, trust in institutions, perceived health risk, and consequences of these initiatives in their life satisfaction. If citizens of a country trust the reasoning behind policy implementations, they postulate them as improvement in their health safety and overall life satisfaction³3 Hetherington MJ, Husser JA. How trust matters: the changing political relevance of political trust. American Journal of Political Science 2011; 56(2):312-325..

On the contrary, if stringent policy making couples with public distrust in a government, the citizens of countries may consider government interventions as hostile⁴4 Van Bavel JJ, Baicker K, Boggio PS, Capraro V, Cichocka A, Cikara M, Crockett MJ, Crum AJ, Douglas KM, Druckman JN, Drury J. Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response. Nat Hum Behav 2020; 4(5):460-471.. This leads to a negative impact on perception of life satisfaction and increase the magnitude of the public distrust in government even further⁵5 Bertsou E. Rethinking political distrust. European Political Science Review 2019; 11(2):213-230.. For instance, studies conducted after H1N1 pandemic at Switzerland illustrate that initially Swiss population displayed high trust on the government legislations; however, the trust level sharply declined over the time due to the discrepancies between promised effects by government and end result of the implemented policies⁶6 Bangerter A, Krings F, Mouton A, Gilles I, Green EGT, Clémence A. Longitudinal investigation of public trust in institutions relative to the 2009 H1N1 pandemic in Switzerland. PLoS One 2012; 7(11):e49806.^,77 Quinn SC, Parmer J, Freimuth VS, Hilyard KM, Musa D, Kim KH. Exploring communication, trust in government, and vaccination intention Later in the 2009 H1N1 pandemic: results of a national survey. Biosecur Bioteror 2013; 11(2):96-106.. A systematic literature review conducted on H1N1 reports that In most countries, perceived vulnerability increased, but perceived severity, anxiety, self-efficacy, and vaccination intention decreased⁸8 Bults M, Beaujean DJMA, Richardus JH, Voeten HACM. Perceptions and behavioral responses of the general public during the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) pandemic: a systematic review. Disaster Med Public Health Prep 2015; 9(2):207-219.. This highlights that there is a strong link between trust in government policies and life satisfaction.

Another critical aspect of crisis management is the magnitude of perceived health risk. How people assert their risk perception can affect their trust in and content with institutions and governments⁹9 López-Navarro M, Llorens-Monzonís J, Tortosa-Edo V. The effect of social trust on citizens' health risk perception in the context of a petrochemical industrial complex. Int J Environ Res Public Health 2013; 10(1):399-416.. The behavioral response to the crisis is linked to the perception of risk related to the adverse impact of that specific crisis. In times of major disasters and health crisis, people tend to accept higher degree of restrictive policy implementations while, if the risk perception is low, the vice-a-versa is valid¹⁰10 Van der Weerd W, Timmermans DR, Beaujean DJ, Oudhoff J, van Steenbergen JE. Monitoring the level of government trust, risk perception and intention of the general public to adopt protective measures during the influenza A (H1N1) pandemic in the Netherlands. BMC Public Health 2011; 11:575.^,1111 Zheng S, Wang Z, Wachenheim C. Risk perceptions and risk attitudes among Chinese consumers: the toxic capsule crisis. Journal of Risk Research 2017; 21(10):1184-1196.. Thus, it is essential to investigate the trust in government dealings and the perceived risk among citizens during a health crisis.

With the emergence of COVID-19, there is a growing body of literature that addresses the aforementioned relationship. Although initial studies report that there is a correlation between trust in government departments and agencies and government policies¹²12 Plohl N, Musil B. Modeling compliance with COVID-19 prevention guidelines: the critical role of trust in science. Psychol Health Med 2020; 26(1):1-12.^,1313 Oksanen A, Kaakinen M, Latikka R, Savolainen I, Savela N, Koivula A. Regulation and trust: 3-month follow-up study on COVID-19 mortality in 25 European countries. JMIR Public Health Surveill 2020; 6(2):e19218., majority of these studies are focused on advanced country settings and investigate the topic through the general public lenses. So far, there is limited numbers of studies that concerning of a particular group of population and how aforementioned dynamics work within that group. For instance, Lambovska et al.¹⁴ mention in their recent study that the rate of unemployment among European Union (EU) member countries’ young population (25 years of age or younger) have gone up due to adverse effects of COVID-19. Similarly, Palmer and Small¹⁵15 Palmer AN, Small E. COVID-19 and disconnected youth: Lessons and opportunities from OECD countries. Scand J Public Health 2021; 49(7):779-789. indicate that COVID-19 has further burdened youth (age 18 to 29) in terms of their economic responsibilities and healthcare related expenditures. Both studies further highlight the importance of government policy implementations for protection of the young population, since they are accounting for nearly one fourth of the total world’s population.

Motivated to contribute to the mentioned literature gaps, this study aims to investigate university student’s perception on how government policies affect their life satisfaction associated with perceived coronavirus health risk in Mexico. The reason why students are chosen is due to lack of studies that targets them as a subset of young generations. Also, it is important to highlight that Mexico is the only emerging market country in the North America region. Therefore, students who are in Mexico provides a unique setting for this study.

Background and hypotheses development

Perceived coronavirus health risk and life satisfaction

Life satisfaction of an individual is determined by the perception of their environment and intuitive risk assessment within that environment¹⁶16 O'Donnell A, Wilson L, Bosch JA, Borrows R. Life satisfaction and happiness in patients shielding from the COVID-19 global pandemic: a randomised controlled study of the "mood as information" theory. PLoS One 2020; 15(12):e0243278.^,1717 Duong CD. The impact of fear and anxiety of COVID-19 on life satisfaction: Psychological distress and sleep disturbance as mediators. Personality and Individual Differences 2021; 178:110869.. Based on their risk perceptions, individuals adjust their behavior in such a way that they can avoid potential adverse effects of risk factors and can increase their perceived life satisfaction¹⁸18 Vos SC, Buckner MM. Social media messages in an emerging health crisis: tweeting bird flu. J Health Commun 2015; 21(3):301-308.. While this dynamic is thought to be executed based on facts as well as rational deliberations¹⁹19 Tenkorang EY. Effect of knowledge and perceptions of risks on Ebola-preventive behaviours in Ghana. Int Health 2018; 10(3):202-210., social-cognition literature reveals that being exposed to misinformation (optimistic or pessimistic) that is closer to an individual’s own belief or solely relying on one’s own observation can sway the ability to assess the risk²⁰20 Ostrom E. Collective action and the evolution of social norms. Journal of Economic Perspectives 2000; 14(3):137-158.

21 Song G. Understanding public perceptions of benefits and risks of childhood vaccinations in the United States. Risk Analysis 2013; 34(3):541-555.^-2222 Harring N, Jagers SC, Löfgren Å. COVID-19: Large-scale collective action, government intervention, and the importance of trust. World Dev 2021; 138:105236.. A given group of people, as a result of the subjectivity, may perceive their life satisfaction higher or lower than other groups in the given society when facing the same adverse situation²³23 Seehuus M, Stanton AM, Handy AB, Haik AK, Gorman R, Clifton J. Impact of COVID-19 predicts perceived risk more strongly than known demographic risk factors. J Psychosom Res 2021; 140:110299.. Literature provides mixed results regarding this issue. In some cases, there may not even be a perceived risk at a given health crisis; therefore, no change in terms of life satisfaction can possibly be observed²⁴24 Ferrer RA, Klein WMP, Avishai A, Jones K, Villegas M, Sheeran P. When does risk perception predict protection motivation for health threats? A person-by-situation analysis. PLoS One 2018; 13(3):e0191994.. Based on the above discussion, this study proposes the following hypothesis - H ₁ : Students’ perceived coronavirus health risk affects their perception of life satisfaction.

Perceived coronavirus health risk and trust in government policies

Recent published research in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization highlights that one of the main influencers of risk perception during COVID-19 crisis is the public relations and trust in government²⁵25 Lim VW, Lim RL, Tan YR, Soh AS, Tan MX, Othman NB, Borame Dickens S, Thein TL, Lwin MO, Ong RT, Leo YS, Lee VJ, Chen MI. Government trust, perceptions of COVID-19 and behaviour change: cohort surveys, Singapore. Bull World Health Organ 2020; 99(2):92-101.. This is due to citizens of countries’ dependance on reliable information dissemination on the current events, health system’s effectiveness, and the potential nationwide action plans²⁶26 Schneider SH, Eger J, Bruder M, Faust J, Wieler LH. Does the COVID-19 pandemic threaten global solidarity? Evidence from Germany. World Dev 2021; 140:105356.. Failing to answer these needs and delaying taking action to curb the negativities born due to COVID-19 for the sake of political narratives increases the distrust in institutions, legislations, and overall government dealings¹⁷17 Duong CD. The impact of fear and anxiety of COVID-19 on life satisfaction: Psychological distress and sleep disturbance as mediators. Personality and Individual Differences 2021; 178:110869.^,2727 López-Feldman A, Porro R. Do social comparisons and negative shocks affect the subjective well-being of the poor? Evidence from the Peruvian Amazon. Journal of International Development 2021; 33(3):612-616.

28 Bol D, Giani M, Blais A, Loewen PJ. The effect of COVID-19 lockdowns on political support: some good news for democracy? European Journal of Political Research 2020; 60(2):497-505.^-2929 Gonçalves C, Santinha G, Santiago A, Barros G. Collaborative place-based health governance systems: stakeholders' perceptions in the Portuguese Baixo Vouga sub-region. Cien Saude Colet 2021; 26(Suppl. 1):2415-2420..

On the other hand, there are research works indicating that government’s ability to match with public’s opinion on how severe the crisis is and to implement measures that could counterbalance the negativities of COVID-19 boost the public trust towards government policies³⁰30 Kye B, Hwang S-J. Social trust in the midst of pandemic crisis: Implications from COVID-19 of South Korea. Res Soc Stratif Mobil 2020; 68:100523.^,3131 Hsieh Y (Jerrie), Chen Y-L, Wang Y-C. Government and social trust vs. hotel response efficacy: A protection motivation perspective on hotel stay intention during the COVID-19 pandemic. International Journal of Hospitality Management 2021; 97:102991.. As a result, the perceived health risk decreases and citizens’ attitude towards risk level at a given country drops and they go back to their pre-pandemic daily routines³²32 Min C, Shen F, Yu W, Chu Y. The relationship between government trust and preventive behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic in China: exploring the roles of knowledge and negative emotion. Prev Med 2020; 141:106288.^,3333 Dedeoglu BB, Bogan E. The motivations of visiting upscale restaurants during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of risk perception and trust in government. International Journal of Hospitality Management 2021; 95:102905..

The emerging research, however, reveals a different path of interaction. It suggests that the higher risk perception of health could mean lower levels of trust in the government policies³⁴34 Pak A, McBryde E, Adegboye OA. Does high public trust amplify compliance with stringent COVID-19 government health guidelines? A multi-country analysis using data from 102,627 Individuals. Risk Manag Healthc Policy 2021; 14:293-302.^,3535 Oude Groeniger J, Noordzij K, van der Waal J, de Koster W. Dutch COVID-19 lockdown measures increased trust in government and trust in science: a difference-in-differences analysis. Soc Sci Med 2021; 275:113819.. Simply, the higher potential of the riskiness could be perceived by the citizens as ineffective policy making. The higher perceived risk, therefore, requires more impactful government policymaking to recover trust in government policies³⁶36 Joshanloo M, Jovanovic V, Taylor T. A multidimensional understanding of prosperity and well-being at country level: data-driven explorations. PLoS One 2019; 14(10):e0223221.. Similarly, false claims by the unaccountable news outlets and word of mouth could create higher perception of risk and lower the level of trust in government³⁷37 Kim S, Kim S. The crisis of public health and infodemic: analyzing belief structure of fake news about COVID-19 Pandemic. Sustainability 2020; 12(23):9904.. False information and distorted claims by plethora of news mediums could fuel the overestimate of the seriousness of the pandemic while fostering conspiracy theories to reduce trust in government and policy-making process in a given country³⁸38 Melki J, Tamim H, Hadid D, Makki M, El Amine J, Hitti E. Mitigating infodemics: the relationship between news exposure and trust and belief in COVID-19 fake news and social media spreading. PLoS One 2021; 16(6):e0252830.. Based on the above discussion, this study proposes the following hypothesis - H ₂: Perceived coronavirus health risk affects students’ trust in government policies.

Trust in government policies and life satisfaction

Trust in government and its influence on the life satisfaction level has been long investigated in social sciences. Frey and Stutzer³⁹39 Frey BS, Stutzer A. Happiness and Economics. The Economics Journal 2000; 110(466): 918-938;, in their seminal work, highlight that there is a strong evidence on the influence of government policies over life satisfaction. Their contemporaries also provide supporting evidence that government policies directly impact life dynamics at a given country and society⁴⁰40 Boarini R, Comola M, de Keulenaer F, Manchin R, Smith C. Can governments boost people's sense of well-being? The impact of selected labour market and health policies on life satisfaction. Social Indicators Research 2013;114(1):105-120.^,4141 Wang D, Li D. Social capital, policy fairness, and subjective life satisfaction of earthquake survivors in Wenchuan, China: a longitudinal study based on post-earthquake survey data. Health Qual Life Outcomes 2020; 18(1):350.. In alignment with the literature, Yu et al.⁴²42 Yu C, Ye B, Lin C, Wu YJ. Can Smart city development promote residents' emotional well-being? Evidence from China. IEEE Access 2020; 8:116024-116040. find that government policies that are reducing factors of stress in citizens’ livelihood and increasing convenience of their daily dealings would lead to higher life satisfaction compared to antecedent life satisfaction levels. In a similar fashion, Barrafrem et al.⁴³43 Barrafrem K, Tinghög G, Västfjäll D. Trust in the government increases financial well-being and general well-being during COVID-19. J Behav Exp Finance 2021; 31:100514. highlight that trust in government policies causes reduction of future anxiety and improves life satisfaction among citizens.

Yet, the impact of the government policies and to what they are welcomed by the citizens in terms of their life satisfaction is significantly related to citizens’ trust in government⁴⁴44 Matsubayashi T, Ueda M. Government partisanship and human well-being. Social Indicators Research 2011; 107(1):127-148.. The lower trust in the policy makers would cause negative perception that leads to lower level of life satisfaction⁴⁵45 Giovanis E. Worthy to lose some money for better air quality: applications of Bayesian networks on the causal effect of income and air pollution on life satisfaction in Switzerland. Empirical Economics 2018; 57(5):1579-1611.. On the contrary, however, high trust in policymakers does not always translate into ex-ante policymaking life satisfaction perception of citizens³⁶36 Joshanloo M, Jovanovic V, Taylor T. A multidimensional understanding of prosperity and well-being at country level: data-driven explorations. PLoS One 2019; 14(10):e0223221.. Due to the dynamic relationship between trust in government policies and life satisfaction, each group and society should be treated as a unique set of observation and investigated separately²⁷27 López-Feldman A, Porro R. Do social comparisons and negative shocks affect the subjective well-being of the poor? Evidence from the Peruvian Amazon. Journal of International Development 2021; 33(3):612-616.^,4646 Gasper D. Subjective and objective well-being in relation to economic inputs: Puzzles and responses. Review of Social Economy 2005; 63(2):177-206.^,4747 Zhu Z, Liu Y, Kapucu N, Peng Z. Online media and trust in government during crisis: the moderating role of sense of security. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 2020; 50:101717.. Based on above discussion, this study proposes the following hypothesis - H ₃: Trust in government policies affects life satisfaction of students.

Mediating effects of trust in government policies between perception of health risk and life satisfaction

When large numbers of actors are involved in taking a government motivated action, the extent that individuals’ sense making directly correlated with their own social welfare rather than societies overall well-being⁴⁸48 Jagers SC, Harring N, Löfgren Å, Sjöstedt M, Alpizar F, Brülde B, Langlet D, Nilsson A, Almroth BC, Dupont S, Steffen W. On the Preconditions for large-scale collective action. Ambio 2020; 49(7):1282-1296;. If individuals’ cost-benefit calculation reveals the perceived risk is not high enough to follow the policies in the time of an adverse event and they do not trust the government, they simply prefer not to follow preventative guidelines and policies that the government implements⁴⁹49 Dawes RM. Social dilemmas. Annu Rev Psychol 1980; 31(1):169-193.. Their perception towards government interventions shifts from facilitating structure for daily life to hindrance of their livelihood⁵⁰50 Andrew B. Market failure, government failure and externalities in climate change mitigation: the case for a carbon tax. Public Administration and Development 2008; 28(5):393-401.^,5151 Chica M, Hernández JM, Bulchand-Gidumal J. A collective risk dilemma for tourism restrictions under the COVID-19 context. Sci Rep 2021; 11(1):169-193.. As a result, publics’ perception on trust in government policies and life satisfaction plummets.

On the contrary, in certain high-risk environments, government interventions may be considered as legitimate. For instance, if a government provides sound reasoning behind its interventions during the crisis, it will build trust among citizens towards implementing policies and reduce the perceived riskiness⁵²52 Tyler TR. Psychological perspectives on legitimacy and legitimation. Annu Rev Psychol 2006; 57(1):375-400.

53 Ning L, Niu J, Bi X, Yang C, Liu Z, Wu Q, Ning N, Liang L, Liu A, Hao Y, Gao L, Liu C. The impacts of knowledge, risk perception, emotion and information on citizens' protective behaviors during the outbreak of COVID-19: a cross-sectional study in China. BMC Public Health 2020; 20(1):1751.

54 Balog-Way DHP, McComas KA. COVID-19: reflections on trust, tradeoffs, and preparedness. Journal of Risk Research 2020; 23(7-8):838-848.^-5555 Li H, Cao Y. The bright side of the COVID-19 pandemic: public coughing weakens the overconfidence bias in non-health domains. Personality and Individual Differences 2021; 178:110861.. Otherwise, government interventions will be linked to corruption and reduce trust in government during crisis⁵⁶56 Charron N, Harring N, Lapuente V. Trust, regulation, and redistribution why some governments overregulate and under-redistribute. Regulation & Governance 2019; 15(1):3-16.^,5757 Abeysinghe S, Leppold C, Ozaki A, Morita M. Risk, uncertainty and medical practice: changes in the medical professions following disaster. Evidence & Policy: A Journal of Research, Debate and Practice 2020; 16(2):285-303.. However, there is a limited number of research works that investigates the dynamic mentioned above in COVID-19 settings. It is not clear whether trust in government policies mediate how citizens perceive government actions and link it to their life satisfaction. Hence, based on the provided literature, this paper proposes the following hypothesis - H ₄: Trust in government mediates the relationship between perceived coronavirus health risk perception and life satisfaction among students.

The Figure 1 illustrates the model that is created to investigate and plot the relationship among the “Perceived Coronavirus Health Risk” (PCHR), “Trust in Government Policies” (TGP), and life satisfaction (LS). It accounts for two possible relation investigations among the mentioned variables: direct relation/correlations and mediation-based interactions. The rigor of the model stems from its way of mapping each possible interaction through the lenses of the proposed mediation technique. The next section explains the adopted methodology in detail, followed by the “Analysis and Results” section in which the analysis results are explained thoroughly.

Methodology

Participants and procedure

This research has been conducted using empirical evidence which was collected through online responses of undergraduate students of Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico. In order to collect data for this research, we sought help from university Professors for distributing Google form-based online survey links among their students. Professors used a learning management system (LMS) platform, Canvas, to distribute this online survey link. Canvas is currently being utilized as an official LMS platform for both university professors and students. For this research, the data was collected using the convenience sampling technique. The data collection duration was based on the following five weeks, starting from April to the first week of May 2021. Due to the anonymity of the survey, with in alignment with the previous studies, the study is exempt from ethical board approval⁵⁸58 Fatima A, Sunguh KK, Abbas A, Mannan A, Hosseini S. Impact of pressure, self-efficacy, and self-competency on students' plagiarism in higher education. Account Res 2020; 27(1):32-48..

Within the scope of this study, we received a total of 97 responses via Google Form-based online survey. During data curation, it was found that two responses were incomplete, which were deleted prior to the final analysis of collected data. Therefore, we could only take into account 95 responses as the final analysis of collected data.

Measures

Independent variable: perceived coronavirus health risk

To measure perceived coronavirus health risk (PCHR), we adopted three items from scale developed by Han et al.⁵⁹ The sample questions involved To minimize my chances of getting coronavirus, I wash my hands more often. In order to test the reliability of the scale, Cronbach alpha value was utilized. According to the previous literature, the value of Cronbach alpha values that are exceeding the 0.7 value accepted as reliable scale for the measuring variables⁶⁰60 Cronbach LJ. Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of test. Psychometrika 1951; 16:2973334.^,6161 Kaya, S, Kirlioglu M, Toptas T, Covid-19 Pandemisinin Ruhsal ve Psikosomatik Etkilerini Degerlendirme Ölçeginin Gelistirilmesi: Geçerlilik ve Güvenilirlik Çalismasi. Toplum ve Sosyal Hizmet 2021; 32(2):525-541.. Cronbach alpha, for the independent variable (PCHR) found as 0.94. The test shows that PCHR variable that is employed for this study is reliability.

Mediating variable: trust in government policies

To measure trust in government policies (TGP), three items had been adopted from the developed scale of Han et al.⁵⁹59 Han Q, Zheng B, Cristea M, Agostini M, Bélanger JJ, Gützkow B, Kreienkamp J; PsyCorona Collaboration, Leander NP. Trust in government regarding COVID-19 and its associations with preventive health behaviour and prosocial behaviour during the pandemic: a cross-sectional and longitudinal study. Psychol Med 2021;1-11. The sample questions entailed In general, how much do you trust government of your country to take the right measures to deal with the coronavirus pandemic”. The reliability and the scale of the variable is validated based on Cronbach alpha test. The value of Cronbach alpha for the variable is determined as 0.91. It shows that the scale to be reliable for the present study⁶⁰60 Cronbach LJ. Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of test. Psychometrika 1951; 16:2973334.^,6262 Xiong B, Skitmore M, Xia B. A critical review of structural equation modeling application in construction research. Automation in Construction 2015; 49:59-70.^,6363 Thanh ND, Hung PT, Hoang NM, Anh PQ. A framework of leadership and managerial competency for preventive health managers in Vietnam. Int J Healthc Manag 2019; 14(2):478-483..

Dependent variable: life satisfaction

To measure life satisfaction (LS), we adopted four items from developed scales of Phulkerd et al.⁶⁴64 Phulkerd S, Thapsuwan S, Chamratrithirong A, Gray RS. Influence of healthy lifestyle behaviors on life satisfaction in the aging population of Thailand: a national population-based survey. BMC Public Health 2021; 21(1):43. The sample questions included In most ways, my life is close to my ideal and the reliability determined as 0.80. This finding agrees with the Xiong et al.⁶²62 Xiong B, Skitmore M, Xia B. A critical review of structural equation modeling application in construction research. Automation in Construction 2015; 49:59-70.

Statistical analysis

In order to statistically analyze collected data, we used Jamovi version 1.6.23.0 (Mac OS), an open-access software. During the first step of data analysis, we applied a descriptive technique for gaining initial information of participants like the total number of respondents and percentage with regards to their gender, age, major, enrollment status, and scholarship. In the second step, we applied correlation analysis for checking the existence of a correlation between a set of variables. Lastly, we applied the Generalized Linear Model (GLM) mediation approach, to identify the mediation (indirect and direct) effects of Trust on government policies on the independent variable Perceived coronavirus health risk and dependent variable i.e., Life satisfaction, and also total effects between both dependent and independent variable.

Analysis and results

Descriptive analysis

The demographic information of respondents is based on counts and percentages with different levels such as age, gender, specialization, and scholarship. Age-wise distribution of respondents was 26 students (27.4%) between 18 to 20 years, 62 respondents (65.3%) between 21 to 22 years, and remaining 7 respondents were above 23 years (7.4%). Most responses were received from male students i.e., 64 (67.4%), and the remaining 31 were female respondents (32.6%). Specialization-wise 58 (61.1%) respondents were from Management and Social Sciences, 31 (32.6%) respondents from Engineering, and remaining 6 from Natural Sciences (6.3%). 55 (57.9%) respondents were studying without a scholarship, and the remaining 40 (42.1%) respondents held scholarships (Table 1).

Correlation analysis

For correlation analysis, we applied Pearson’s r test to explore the correlation existing among independent (PCHR), mediation (TGP), and dependent (LS) variables. It is demonstrated by analyzed results in Table 1 that a significant correlation exists between sets of variables. PCHR is significantly and positively correlated with LS (r = .474, p < 0.001). Analyzed results also confirm that a significantly positive correlation exists between PCHR and TGP (r = .877, p < 0.001), and TGP and LS (r = .569, p < 0.001) (Table 2).

Hypotheses testing

GLM Mediation analysis technique was used to test the hypotheses based on relationships represented in the research model. The technique was used by employing the “medmod” module of Jamovi software. Table 3 illustrates the findings of our results. It is indicated by the analyzed result that our first hypothesis H ₁: Students’ perceived coronavirus health risk affects their perception of life satisfaction is supported (β = 0.474, p < 0.001). H ₂: Perceived coronavirus health risk affects students’ trust in government policies (β = 0.887, p < 0.001) and H ₃: Trust in government policies affects life satisfaction of students (β = 0.662, p < 0.001) are supported respectively.

It is also revealed by Table 3 that trust in government policies mediates the relationship between PCHR and LS because no zero value exists between Lower and Upper Confidence Intervals, also the Delta method affirms mediation (estimate = 0.4445, β = 0.474, z = 3.699, p < .001). Hence, hypothesis H ₄ has been supported as well i.e., Trust in government mediates the relationship between coronavirus health risk perception and life satisfaction among students. After the mediator’s introduction, the relationship between the dependent and independent variable has been modified from significant to insignificant such as significant total effects were modified insignificant direct effects. It has been affirmed through our analyzed results that the research model has full mediation.

Discussion

According to the previous literature, mixed results of government efforts in mitigating the negative effects of public health crises might be due to the varying levels of societies’ trust in governments³3 Hetherington MJ, Husser JA. How trust matters: the changing political relevance of political trust. American Journal of Political Science 2011; 56(2):312-325.^,44 Van Bavel JJ, Baicker K, Boggio PS, Capraro V, Cichocka A, Cikara M, Crockett MJ, Crum AJ, Douglas KM, Druckman JN, Drury J. Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response. Nat Hum Behav 2020; 4(5):460-471.. While high public trust in government significantly increases the compliance with restrictions and preventative measures⁶⁵65 Min C, Shen F, Yu W, Chu Y. The relationship between government trust and preventive behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic in China: exploring the roles of knowledge and negative emotion. Prev Med 2020; 141:106288., distrust in government limits the outcomes of the of government responses to COVID-19⁶⁶66 Ezeibe CC, Ilo C, Ezeibe EN, Oguonu CN, Nwankwo NA, Ajaero CK, Osadebe N. Political distrust and the spread of COVID-19 in Nigeria. Glob Public Health 2020; 15(12):1753-1766..

This study demonstrates a correlation between perceived coronavirus health risk and life satisfaction, perceived coronavirus health risk and trust in government policies, as well as trust in government policies and life satisfaction. This analysis supports the argument that trust in government policies has a mediation effect on the relation between people’s perception of health risk and their life satisfaction. The data confirms that trust in government policies is a mediating variable, accounting for the relationship between the perception of COVID-19 health risk among the students who took the survey and their life satisfaction.

Furthermore, the perceived coronavirus health risk is correlated with trust in government’s policies. In line with the hypothesis, the results show that the students’ perceived health risk associated with the coronavirus affects their level of trust in government policies. Our results support the findings of the contemporary research such as Edelman⁶⁷67 Edelman. Spring update: Trust and the COVID-19 Pandemic [Internet]. Edelman Trust Barometer 2020; [cited 2021 jun 09]. Available from: https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2020-05/2020%20Edelman%20Trust%20Barometer%20Spring%20Update.pdf
https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aa... which shows a record rise in trust in government among the 11 studied countries during the COVID -19 pandemic. Our study agrees with the previous literature that the potential riskiness of a health crisis would influence the perception of citizens about effectiveness of government’s policy making and implementation¹⁰10 Van der Weerd W, Timmermans DR, Beaujean DJ, Oudhoff J, van Steenbergen JE. Monitoring the level of government trust, risk perception and intention of the general public to adopt protective measures during the influenza A (H1N1) pandemic in the Netherlands. BMC Public Health 2011; 11:575.^,1111 Zheng S, Wang Z, Wachenheim C. Risk perceptions and risk attitudes among Chinese consumers: the toxic capsule crisis. Journal of Risk Research 2017; 21(10):1184-1196.^,3232 Min C, Shen F, Yu W, Chu Y. The relationship between government trust and preventive behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic in China: exploring the roles of knowledge and negative emotion. Prev Med 2020; 141:106288.^,6868 Schraff D. Political trust during the Covid-19 pandemic: rally around the flag or lockdown effects? Euro J Polit Res 2020; [ahead of print]. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12425
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.1242... . The findings of this study also emphasize the importance of ethical media and transparency of information. As Kim and Kim³⁷37 Kim S, Kim S. The crisis of public health and infodemic: analyzing belief structure of fake news about COVID-19 Pandemic. Sustainability 2020; 12(23):9904., and Melki et al.³⁸38 Melki J, Tamim H, Hadid D, Makki M, El Amine J, Hitti E. Mitigating infodemics: the relationship between news exposure and trust and belief in COVID-19 fake news and social media spreading. PLoS One 2021; 16(6):e0252830. suggested, false claims and distorted information by unaccountable news mediums could alter the perception of risk and affect the trust in the government and their policy-making process.

However, according to our results, the extent that the government policies are welcomed by the citizens in terms of their life satisfaction is related to people’s trust in government. This is in line with the statement of Hetherington and Husser³3 Hetherington MJ, Husser JA. How trust matters: the changing political relevance of political trust. American Journal of Political Science 2011; 56(2):312-325., and Barrafrem et al.⁴³43 Barrafrem K, Tinghög G, Västfjäll D. Trust in the government increases financial well-being and general well-being during COVID-19. J Behav Exp Finance 2021; 31:100514. that if citizens trust the reasoning behind policy implementations by government, they consider them as improvement in their health safety and life satisfaction.

Finally, results further supplement the perspective on the relevance of trust in government policies as a mediator variable between perceived coronavirus health risk and life satisfaction. After the introduction of trust in government policies, the relationship between the perceived coronavirus health risk and life satisfaction was modified from significant to insignificant. Therefore, trust in government policies fully mediates the effect of perceived health risk on life satisfaction.

Conclusion

Recently, perceived coronavirus health risk presented a unique challenge for all governments. In order to tackle this challenging situation, the governments must design and execute new innovative public policies for citizens to trust their government policies as well as build life satisfaction. Due to the dynamic relationship shared by the trust in government policies and life satisfaction, every group and society must be investigated separately and treated as a unique set of observations²⁵25 Lim VW, Lim RL, Tan YR, Soh AS, Tan MX, Othman NB, Borame Dickens S, Thein TL, Lwin MO, Ong RT, Leo YS, Lee VJ, Chen MI. Government trust, perceptions of COVID-19 and behaviour change: cohort surveys, Singapore. Bull World Health Organ 2020; 99(2):92-101.^,4444 Matsubayashi T, Ueda M. Government partisanship and human well-being. Social Indicators Research 2011; 107(1):127-148.^,4545 Giovanis E. Worthy to lose some money for better air quality: applications of Bayesian networks on the causal effect of income and air pollution on life satisfaction in Switzerland. Empirical Economics 2018; 57(5):1579-1611.. It has been affirmed through this study’s findings that Mexican undergraduate students are of the view that trusting government plays a crucial role as a mediator between their perception of coronavirus health risk and life satisfaction. The relevant findings of the study might provide guidance to governments’ policymaking efforts and encourage them to support their initiatives with trust-building efforts. In addition, practitioners and academics alike may further explore what communication strategies would transmit information in a reliable fashion and efficient way as a future research topic through comparative analysis and diverse country settings.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support of Writing Lab, Institute for the Future of Education, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico, in the production of this work. We are thankful to Talía González Cacho and Mildred López for helping us during data collection. We are also grateful to all students who became a part of our online survey.

References

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