Wright, Liam;
Burton, Alexandra;
McKinlay, Alison;
Steptoe, Andrew;
Fancourt, Daisy;
(2022)
Public opinion about the UK government during COVID-19 and implications for public health: A topic modeling analysis of open-ended survey response data.
PLOS ONE
, 17
(4)
, Article e0264134. 10.1371/journal.pone.0264134.
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Abstract
BACKGROUND: Confidence in the central UK Government has declined since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and while this may be linked to specific government actions to curb the spread of the virus, understanding is still incomplete. Examining public opinion is important, as research suggests that low confidence in government increases the extent of non-compliance with infection-dampening rules (for instance, social distancing); however, the detailed reasons for this association are still unclear. METHODS: To understand public opinion on the central UK government during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, we used structural topic modeling, a text mining technique, to extract themes from over 4000 free-text survey responses, collected between 14 October and 26 November 2020. RESULTS: We identified eleven topics, among which were topics related to perceived government corruption and cronyism, complaints about inconsistency in rules and messaging, lack of clear planning, and lack of openness and transparency. Participants reported that elements of the government's approach had made it difficult to comply with guidelines (e.g., changing rules) or were having impacts on mental wellbeing (e.g., inability to plan for the future). CONCLUSIONS: Results suggested that consistent, transparent communication and messaging from the government is critical to improving compliance with measures to contain the virus, as well as protecting mental health during health emergencies.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Public opinion about the UK government during COVID-19 and implications for public health: A topic modeling analysis of open-ended survey response data |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0264134 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0264134 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2022 Wright et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
| Keywords: | Pandemics, COVID 19, Mental health and psychiatry, Governments, Finance, Anxiety, Scientists, Social policy |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health > Behavioural Science and Health UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Social Research Institute UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10147039 |
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