Does partisan media make a pawn of mistrust? Institutional trust and preventive COVID‐19 health behaviors in a polarized pandemic

In a rapidly developing crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic, people are often faced with contradictory or changing information and must determine what sources to trust. Across five time points (N = 5902) we examine how trust in various predicts health behaviors. Trust experts national news predicted more engagement most behaviors from April 2020 March 2022 Fox news, which positioned itself counter mainstream on COVID-19, less engagement. However, also examined particular public behavior (masking) before after CDC announcement recommending masks 3 (which reversed earlier expert advice discouraging for general public). Prior announcement, mask-wearing while News more. These relationships disappeared next 4 days following 2 years that follow, emerged vaccination later points. We media trusted by Democrats Republicans turn Broadly consider increasingly fragmented epistemic environment has implications polarization matters of health.