CONTEXT: Trust contributes to community resilience by the critical influence it has on the community's responses to public health recommendations before, during, and after disasters. However, trust in public health is a multifactorial concept that has rarely been defined and measured empirically in public health jurisdictional risk assessment surveys. Measuring trust helps public health departments identify and ameliorate a threat to effective risk communications and increase resilience. Such a measure should be brief to be incorporated into assessments conducted by public health departments. OBJECTIVE: We report on a brief scale of public health disaster-related trust, its psychometric properties, and its validity. DESIGN: On the basis of a literature review, our conceptual model of public health disaster-related trust and previously conducted focus groups, we postulated that public health disaster-related trust includes 4 major domains: competency, honesty, fairness, and confidentiality. SETTING: A random-digit-dialed telephone survey of the Los Angeles county population, conducted in 2004-2005 in 6 languages. PARTICIPANTS: Two thousand five hundred eighty-eight adults aged 18 years and older including oversamples of African Americans and Asian Americans. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Trust was measured by 4 items scored on a 4-point Likert scale. A summary score from 4 to 16 was constructed. RESULTS: Scores ranged from 4 to 16 and were normally distributed with a mean of 8.5 (SD 2.7). Cronbach α = 0.79. As hypothesized, scores were lower among racial/ethnic minority populations than whites. Also, trust was associated with lower likelihood of following public health recommendations in a hypothetical disaster and lower likelihood of household disaster preparedness. CONCLUSIONS: The Public Health Disaster Trust scale may facilitate identifying communities where trust is low and prioritizing them for inclusion in community partnership building efforts under Function 2 of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Public Health Preparedness Capability 1. The scale is brief, reliable, and validated in multiple ethnic populations and languages.
CONTEXT: Trust contributes to community resilience by the critical influence it has on the community's responses to public health recommendations before, during, and after disasters. However, trust in public health is a multifactorial concept that has rarely been defined and measured empirically in public health jurisdictional risk assessment surveys. Measuring trust helps public health departments identify and ameliorate a threat to effective risk communications and increase resilience. Such a measure should be brief to be incorporated into assessments conducted by public health departments. OBJECTIVE: We report on a brief scale of public health disaster-related trust, its psychometric properties, and its validity. DESIGN: On the basis of a literature review, our conceptual model of public health disaster-related trust and previously conducted focus groups, we postulated that public health disaster-related trust includes 4 major domains: competency, honesty, fairness, and confidentiality. SETTING: A random-digit-dialed telephone survey of the Los Angeles county population, conducted in 2004-2005 in 6 languages. PARTICIPANTS: Two thousand five hundred eighty-eight adults aged 18 years and older including oversamples of African Americans and Asian Americans. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Trust was measured by 4 items scored on a 4-point Likert scale. A summary score from 4 to 16 was constructed. RESULTS: Scores ranged from 4 to 16 and were normally distributed with a mean of 8.5 (SD 2.7). Cronbach α = 0.79. As hypothesized, scores were lower among racial/ethnic minority populations than whites. Also, trust was associated with lower likelihood of following public health recommendations in a hypothetical disaster and lower likelihood of household disaster preparedness. CONCLUSIONS: The Public Health Disaster Trust scale may facilitate identifying communities where trust is low and prioritizing them for inclusion in community partnership building efforts under Function 2 of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Public Health Preparedness Capability 1. The scale is brief, reliable, and validated in multiple ethnic populations and languages.
Authors: Paul K J Han; Brian J Zikmund-Fisher; Christine W Duarte; Megan Knaus; Adam Black; Aaron M Scherer; Angela Fagerlin Journal: J Health Commun Date: 2018-04-12
Authors: Taylor A Holroyd; Rupali J Limaye; Jennifer E Gerber; Rajiv N Rimal; Rashelle J Musci; Janesse Brewer; Andrea Sutherland; Madeleine Blunt; Gail Geller; Daniel A Salmon Journal: J Health Commun Date: 2021-05-16
Authors: Asha V Devereaux; Pritish K Tosh; John L Hick; Dan Hanfling; James Geiling; Mary Jane Reed; Timothy M Uyeki; Umair A Shah; Daniel B Fagbuyi; Peter Skippen; Jeffrey R Dichter; Niranjan Kissoon; Michael D Christian; Jeffrey S Upperman Journal: Chest Date: 2014-10 Impact factor: 9.410