Trust in the government is the best predictor of vaccine uptake – case solves the net benefit – And, squo low trust kills their solvency

Trust plays an even more salient role in people's vaccine decision‐making during the present COVID‐19 pandemic due to greater presence of misinformation about COVID‐19 and increased polarization of the society (Gollust, Nagler, and Fowler 2020). Scholars have found strong evidence that trust is closely linked to various health mitigation measures, including COVID‐19 vaccination attitudes and intentions. For example, trust in the World Health Organization (Bayram and Shields 2021) and trust in science (Kreps and Kriner 2020; Sulik et al. 2021) predict adherence to COVID‐19 social distancing guidelines. A study conducted in 17 countries found a link between trust in scientists and health‐care professionals and vaccine hesitancy (Rozek et al. 2021). Similarly, trust in experts as well as trust in mainstream media news sources was positively correlated with COVID‐19 vaccination intentions (Callaghan et al. 2021; Woko, Siegel, and Hornik 2020). On the other hand, distrust of experts and intellectuals lowered public's compliance with COVID‐19 mitigation behaviors (Merkley and Loewen 2021). Besides trust in medical personnel, trust in government also affects willingness to receive a COVID‐19 vaccine (Lazarus et al. 2020). Studies conducted in Austria (Schernhammer et al. 2021), the United States (Daly, Andrew, and Eric 2021), and simultaneously in multiple countries (Trent et al. 2021) found that people with greater trust and confidence in their government were more willing to receive a COVID‐19 vaccination. Overall, trust plays a key role in people's health behavior during the COVID‐19 pandemic and absence of trust appears to be central to understanding why there has been such a significant resistance to COVID‐19 vaccination.

We make two contributions to the growing literature linking trust to COVID‐19 vaccine hesitancy. First, we investigate the relationship between three aspects of trust and COVID‐19 vaccine uptake. Trust is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that is difficult to define and measure (Guillemin et al. 2016; Hupcey et al. 2001; Li 2007). It is plausible that low trust of the public in vaccines, people who administer them, and the government institutions providing vaccines all drive attitudes on COVID‐19 vaccination. However, this nuance is often overlooked in the scholarship. Studies that investigated the relationship between trust and COVID‐19 vaccine hesitancy mostly focused on only one aspect of trust, such as trust in government (Daly, Andrew, and Eric 2021; Lazarus et al. 2020; Schernhammer et al. 2021) or trust in science (Kreps and Kriner 2020).1 For this reason, it might be difficult to evaluate the relative importance of different aspects of trust when it comes to the decision to receive a COVID‐19 vaccination. In our study, we simultaneously investigate the relationship between three facets of trust and COVID‐19 vaccine hesitancy—trust in physicians, trust in government, and interpersonal trust. We hope these fine‐grained results will help clarify the relationship between trust and COVID‐19 vaccination behaviors.