ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Policy
This article is part of the Research TopicInnovative Strategies for Urban Public Health Resilience in Crisis SituationsView all 35 articles
Risk-Driven or Authority-Based? Unraveling Public Policy Compliance During the Pandemic in China
Provisionally accepted
- 1Guangxi Minzu University, Nanning, China
- 2Guangxi University, Nanning, China
- 3Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China
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Background: Current research on pandemic compliance behavior primarily focuses on two motivational theories: normative and calculative motivations. Our study examines both by looking at public respect for authority and fear of infection risk to understand health policy compliance during COVID-19 in China. Methods: We conducted a survey with 2,305 Chinese citizens, using authority value and risk perception as independent variables, compliance behavior as the dependent variable, and government trust and professional trust as mediators. Structural equation modeling was employed to test the hypotheses. Results: Our study finds that, in terms of direct effects, both authoritarian values and risk perception are positively associated with compliance behavior among the Chinese public, with the effect of authoritarian values being stronger. Government and professional trust enhance the impact of authority value on compliance (trust enhancement) but weaken the impact of risk perception (trust paradox). Conclusion: From the perspective of normative and calculative motivations, compared with the calculative motivation based on individual risk perception, the normative motivation represented by authoritarian values demonstrates a stronger tendency toward policy cooperation, and the public is more likely to comply with public health policies when driven by this motivation. Trust in government and medical experts is crucial for health compliance behavior.
Keywords: Authority values, Risk Perception, Government trust, professional trust, compliance behavior
Received: 03 Oct 2025; Accepted: 10 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhang, Luo, Yang, Ouyang and Deng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Cheng Yang
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