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Trust in science and researchers has fallen following the COVID-19 pandemic, the largest survey of public confidence in science shows. Led by the global biomedical funder Wellcome in London and published on 10 October, it explores how people feel about science and health — including vaccines, pandemic preparedness, clean energy and, for the first time, artificial intelligence (see ‘Trust in decline’).
“We should be paying attention to, and thinking about, what needs to be done to earn that trust,” says Philippa Michael, head of public initiatives at Wellcome, who led the project. This is the third survey of its kind conducted by Wellcome, following editions in 2018 and 2020.
The analysis points to a “mixed” picture that varies between countries and regions, says Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a specialist in science communication at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia (see ‘Regional differences’).
The study also shows a connection between science and people’s broader experiences, including their perceived financial security,says Michael (see ’Money matters‘).
“If people feel economically insecure, then they’re going to feel a greater distance between themselves and science and scientists,” says sociologist Gordon Gauchat, at Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This disconnect “is not about science’s efficacy or its ability to fix problems”, he adds.
The survey found that countries where people reported high confidence in hospitals and health-care clinics were “more likely to have greater trust in science”, notes Michael. Levels of trust were also high in respondents who were confident in accessing health-care services when needed.“It’s really essential that science is credible, relevant and beneficial to people in their lives,” Michael adds.
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