Yunpeng Xu, Qiaolan Liu, Jian Liang
In the context of recurrent public health emergencies, mobilizing cooperation-oriented protective behavior is important for strengthening collective resilience and public governance. Existing research has explained many individual protective behaviors, but less is known about how the structure of the communication environment is associated with protective behaviors that also generate collective benefits. Guided by the Protective Action Decision Model (PADM) and risk communication research, this study develops a communication-structure framework encompassing information sources, communication content, message presentation formats, and communication channels. Risk perception is specified as a statistical mediating mechanism, and trust in authoritative information sources is examined as a moderating condition. Using survey data from 11 provinces in China (N = 1,417), the results show that the four communication dimensions are positively associated with cooperation-oriented protective behavior; risk perception shows a significant mediating pattern between risk communication and such behavior; and trust in authoritative information sources negatively moderates the association between information sources and risk perception, revealing a "high-trust attenuation" pattern. The study contributes to risk communication research by specifying PADM's warning-information input as a structured communication environment, clarifying the appraisal role of risk perception, and showing that authoritative-source trust may operate not only as a facilitator of message acceptance but also as an information filter in multi-source public health communication.