Individual Uncertainty and Policy Compliance During the COVID‐19 Pandemic

Ample scholarship examines the extent to which public policies in representative democracies reflect the priorities and needs of the public, often finding that individuals are unaware of many policy issues and policy responses. This may be especially true when issues of risk and scientific uncertainty are involved, which can be difficult for individuals to understand. Less is known, however, about the dynamics of public awareness on highly salient issues that require public compliance to be successful. To this end, we examine the extent to which uncertainty about policy mandates and recommendations that reduce COVID‐19 pandemic risks exists, along with the patterns of uncertainty across states and demographics. Uncertainty among the public is a critical link toward understanding policy compliance among individuals because awareness of policy information precedes compliance. We analyze these questions of policy uncertainty in the context of the COVID‐19 pandemic in the United States (US). Because COVID‐19 mitigation hinged on public uptake of various non‐pharmaceutical (e.g., mask wearing, social distancing) and pharmaceutical (e.g., vaccination) interventions, the pandemic provides a highly salient context for assessing public awareness of policy interventions. We draw on a representative survey of adults in six US states to understand the degree of public uncertainty about COVID‐19 policies in their states. We find that uncertainty at the individual level is associated with information seeking behaviors and socioeconomic variables, and that uncertainty is linked to policy compliance.