Did Mistrust of the Medical Establishment Lead Residents to Ignore Public Health Guidance During the Pandemic?

• In Event: 40458 - Social Dimensions of Infectious Disease

Abstract

The neighborhood effects literature helped to revive interest in urban neighborhoods and their importance for residents. Mostly the attention has been on efficacy. Research by Sampson (2012) and others led the way and more recent work by Bergemann & Brandtner (Forthcoming) showed how some neighborhoods were better able to mobilize a response to the COVID-19 pandemic than others. For the most part, the outcomes of these constructs could be characterized as ‘positive’, e.g., alleviating crime, promoting vaccines, overcoming alienation, winning favors from city hall, stymieing the spread of a virus, etc. This paper takes a somewhat different approach and argues that some neighborhoods are ‘pockets of discontent’ and much more likely to resist formal controls. We are not referring to neighborhoods that are socially disorganized in the classic sense. Rather we are referring to clusters of residents who have some grievance with the legitimate institutional order which can form the basis for real and symbolic political action. These instances of local resistance may be progressive or reactionary.

Our paper uses the COVID-19 pandemic as an instance to test our theory. We hypothesize that residents who have a history of discontent with healthcare, physicians, and medical science are less likely to respond to public health mandates during a pandemic, e.g., they will visit neighborhood establishments (i.e., third places) although advised not to. Using data on visitors to restaurants, bars, movie theaters, fitness centers, and grocery stores in the Phoenix-Buckeye Urban area from a data broker (Advan, Inc.), ACS data, and weekly case rates from the AZ Department of Public Health, we test this hypothesis. In a preliminary analysis we find that residents from ZCTAs which voted Republican in the 2020 presidential election, were predominantly Black or Latino, or had residents who were not college grads, all segments who are distrustful of the medical establishment, visited restaurants at a higher rate during times of government closures and stay-at-home orders than ZCTAs without these demographics.

Authors

• Joseph Galaskiewicz, University of Arizona

• Eunsung Yoon, Princeton University

• Zhuofan Li, Virginia Tech

• Zheng Fu, University of Arizona

• Caleb Moore, University of Houston

• Thelma Reis

• Kristen Pogreba-Brown

• Leila Barraza

• Wanjun Chen