How trust shapes individual resilience to natural hazards: a systematic review

This paper presents a systematic review of 100 articles and book chapters published between 2000 and 2025 which reveals that trust can both strengthen and weaken resilience to hazard events, depending on geographical factors, cultural context, hazard type, and the parties in whom trust is placed (e.g., government, community, scientific institutions, or personal beliefs).

From the 100 studies, the authors identified 209 relationships between trust and individuals’ resilience to natural hazards. They find that in the majority of case studies, trust is associated with increased resilience (58%), compared with trust being associated with decreased resilience (33%), or no change to resilience (10%). The findings highlight the need for clarity when defining or theorising trust, and recognise the dynamic and context-dependent nature of trust when seeking to improve resilience to support effective disaster risk reduction.