Abstract
This study explored relations between COVID-19 news source, trust in COVID-19 information source, and COVID-19 health literacy in 194 STEM-oriented adolescents and young adults from the US and the UK. Analyses suggest that adolescents use both traditional news (e.g., TV or newspapers) and social media news to acquire information about COVID-19 and have average levels of COVID-19 health literacy. Hierarchical linear regression analyses suggest that the association between traditional news media and COVID-19 health literacy depends on participants' level of trust in their government leader. For youth in both the US and the UK who used traditional media for information about COVID-19 and who have higher trust in their respective government leader (i.e., former US President Donald Trump and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson) had lower COVID-19 health literacy. Results highlight how youth are learning about the pandemic and the importance of not only considering their information source, but also their levels of trust in their government leaders.
Highlights
On February 28th, 2020, former US President Donald Trump received criticism for his politicization of the coronavirus pandemic by referring to it as “a Democratic hoax” [1]
We assessed the percentage of adolescents who reported using each platform as their news source
Bivariate correlations indicated that trust in government leaders about COVID-19 was positively associated with traditional news media
Summary
On February 28th, 2020, former US President Donald Trump received criticism for his politicization of the coronavirus pandemic by referring to it as “a Democratic hoax” [1]. The implications of his suggestion polarized both the country and news media, as the public scrambled to disentangle fact from fiction [2]. On March 3rd, 2020, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced, “I’m shaking hands continuously. I was at a hospital the other night where I think there were a few coronavirus patients and I shook hands with everybody, you’ll be pleased to know. I continue to shake hands” [3].
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