Economic Impacts of Ebola Bulletin Three Patterns of Trust and Compliance in the Fight against Ebola: Results from a Population-based Survey of Monrovia, Liberia

The Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) crisis in Liberia has steadily waned over the first months of 2015. After a total of 9,526 cases with 4,264 deaths, Liberia reported only one confirmed case in March 2015. In brief • A survey of over 1500 residents in Monrovia, Liberia's capital city, was conducted in December 2014 to understand the social factors that contributed to the EVD epidemic and to inform the recovery • The study provides support for the widely-reported belief that distrust in government contributed to the epidemic's spread: distrust in government is associated with lower uptake of preventative measures and lower support for control policies, even after accounting for knowledge of Ebola, socio-demographics, and fear of Ebola. • Trust in government likely deteriorated further during the crisis: hardship experiences during the crisis, including job loss, knowing Ebola victims, and observing delayed removal of dead bodies, is associated with greater distrust in government. • Community outreach, especially when conducted under the auspices of the government and in collaboration with pre-existing community institutions, is an effective means to build citizen cooperation in the fight against Ebola and restore trust in authority: citizens who experienced outreach are more likely to adopt preventative measures, support control policies, and trust the government. These patterns are unlikely to be explained by confounding factors. • Community outreach may also help restore relations between citizens and government in the post-Ebola recovery period: citizens who experienced outreach express a greater preference for government as opposed to NGO provision of health care, education, and security. Outreach is also associated with support for policies essential to state capacity, including taxation and the rule of law. a survey of over 1,500 residents of Monrovia, Liberia's capital city. This survey was intended first and foremost to provide information for responders on the ground to target the neighbourhoods most in need of assistance. 2 A secondary aim of our survey was to better understand the social and political causes and consequences of the epidemic. This report highlights some of our key results. We first focus on understanding the correlates of compliance with control policies that have been essential to halting Ebola's spread. Our results reveal a robust link between trust in government and compliance: Individuals who are less trusting of government are less likely to support control policies and less likely to adopt preventative measures. These differences persist even after accounting for key demographic …