Those who experience epidemics in their ‘impressionable years’ (18-25) are found to be less likely to have confidence in their national government; less likely to have confidence in the honesty of elections; and less likely to approve of the performance of their national leader.

And the lower levels of trust are not only significant compared to those who do not experience epidemics at the same age, they are also found to be persistent over decades, only diminishing in later life. The effects are also particularly acute when governments are weak, lack popular support and have limited ability to create effective policy.

The findings were revealed in a new paper, the Political Scar of Epidemics, co-authored by Dr Cevat Giray Aksoy (King’s College London), Professor Barry Eichengreen (University of California, Berkeley) and Dr Orkun Saka (University of Sussex).

Dr Aksoy said: “The implications of this study are unsettling. Imagine that more trust in government is important for containment, but that failure of containment harms trust in government.

Data for the study was drawn from thousands of responses on trust and confidence in governments, elections, and national leaders from the 2006-2018 Gallup World Polls fielded in up to 140 countries annually, together with data on the incidence of epidemics since 1970 in the EM-DAT International Disasters Database.

Analysing survey responses, the academics found an individual with the highest exposure to an epidemic (relative to zero exposure) is 5.1 percentage points less likely to have confidence in the national government; 7.2 percentage points less likely to have confidence in the honesty of elections; and 6.2 percentage points less likely to approve of the performance of the national leader.

The findings could have implications for democracy and trust in governments in the post COVID-19 world, where the effectiveness of government responses were perceived to have varied between different nations.