We find that, while there is a great deal of compliance with public health recommendations overall, religious factors-especially religious nationalism and religious affiliation-are important predictors of both reported personal behavior and support for public health directives among frontline officials during the pandemic.Īs Baker et al. In this paper, we fill this gap by examining how religion shaped frontline officials’ reported COVID-19 personal health behaviors-such as donning a mask and practicing social distancing-as well their support for COVID-19 mitigation strategies that involved the closing of key economic and civic institutions. What explains differences in the behaviors and attitudes of frontline officials, those whose actions can have immediate consequences for the public health of local communities? While a growing body of work examines how religion has influenced the attitudes and behaviors of the general public during the pandemic ( Djupe and Burge 2020 Perry, Whitehead, and Grubbs 2020a, 2020b Smothers, Burge, and Djupe 2020), it has not yet examined how religion may have influenced the behaviors of frontline officials. But others have violated public health recommendations either through their own behaviors or by voicing opposition to state mandates for institutional closures ( Brzezinski et al. Many local government officials (“frontline officials”) have personally modeled disease prevention behavior and helped enforce public health mandates ( Van Bavel et al. Thousands of local governments have been tasked with implementing state and federal policies and mobilizing local compliance, often with limited guidance and constrained resources. Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have been uneven and unequal across the United States. Frontline officials are key for understanding how religion influences the pandemic and state action more generally. Other religious factors, like affiliation and attendance, vary in their influence and even work differently among officials compared to the general public. Results show high levels of compliance with public health recommendations, but religious nationalism negatively influences all outcomes. Using a unique, two-wave, representative survey of frontline officials, we examine how religion influenced officials’ reported personal health behaviors (mask wearing, social distancing) and attitudes toward institutional reopenings. Despite evidence that religion significantly impacts the general public’s response to the pandemic, the influence of religion on officials’ behaviors and attitudes is unknown. Their actions and attitudes, either in support of or opposition to public health recommendations, have resulted in widespread variation in local-level pandemic response. Frontline officials (such as mayors and commissioners) are responsible for local-level responses to the COVID-19 pandemic across the United States.