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Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of government trust on young adults’ adoption of health behaviors to prevent infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Method: We tested the hypothesis that government trust would directly and indirectly (through worry/fear and subjective norms) influence the adoption of health-protective behaviors. A sample of 1,136 university students completed a web survey after Chile’s first wave of infections.

Results: The results indicate that low government trust only indirectly (through subjective norms) influenced health-protective behaviors. Conversely, worry/fear was the primary motivating factor for adopting health-protective behaviors in young adults, followed by subjective norms.

Conclusion: In scenarios where people perceive low government trust, emotions and social norms are the motivational factors with the most significant predictive power on the adoption of health-protective behaviors.