Adoption intention of e-government application for public health risk communication: Risk information, social media competence and trust in the government

Abstract

Backgrounds: Effective risk communication depends on the government’s ability to deploy the latest communication technologies to promptly educate its citizens of new hazards and assist them in making informed decisions. This study investigates the influence of risk information seeking, social media competency and trust in the government on the intention to adopt e-government apps for communicating public health risks. Design and methods: To achieve the study’s objective, a convenience sample of 149 Malaysian residents residing in Shah Alam was obtained via a structured questionnaire and subsequently analyzed using the Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Method. The validity and reliability of the study were evaluated through the outer loadings, Average Variance Extracted (AVE), and Composite Reliability (CR). The influence of underlying factors on the outcome was evaluated by examining path coefficients, standard errors, and t-values. Results: The measurement model suggested to use three items to measure the risk information seeking and five to measure trust in the government information and social competence. Loadings ranged from 0.681 to 0.972. The three factors explained the 43.2% of the outcome variability, and all had a positive effect on the intention to adopt information from the e-government application with coefficients estimates ranging from 0.133 to 0.541. The model showed an adequate predictive relevance with Q2 = 0.381 Conclusion: Public health risk communication via e-government applications rely on the active and accountable engagement of the citizens. To stimulate higher acceptance and utilization of government digital services for sustainable health risk communication and management, the government must raise the public’s level of digital literacy and proficiency. By offering training programs and demonstrations, the government may also need to think about making investments in education about digital and technological skill levels.