Priming COVID-19's consequences can increase support for investments in public health

Abstract

Can messaging that emphasizes the costs of COVID-19 increase popular support for more proactive public health policies? People who experience disasters often become more supportive of policies to address their underlying causes, and the pandemic may have similar spillover effects for public opinion. To test this idea, the study implements a survey experiment in Italy, Germany, and the United States in which half of the respondents were randomly assigned to a prime about the impact of the pandemic prior to answering questions about their support for public health policies. The results show that respondents who received the prime became more favorable toward increased government spending on domestic and foreign public health programs alike. These treatment effects were consistent across countries, across two different surveys in the United States conducted at different points in time, and across partisan subgroups. However, the treatment did not consistently increase support for more active and intrusive government policies to address specific public health challenges like smoking or HIV/AIDS. The results suggest that public health advocates may benefit from messaging that connects COVID-19 to the need for public health funding beyond the context of the pandemic.