A recently released Pew Research Center survey measured the public’s trust in scientists and whether the scientific community should play a role in policymaking. At 76%, public trust in the scientific community is up slightly from 73% the previous year but still lower than 87% in April 2020 during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Regardless of how well they trust scientists, Americans are split on whether they should have a role in policy decisions regarding public health. Slightly more than half (51%) believe they should take an active role in public policy debates about scientific issues, while 48% think they should focus on the science and steer clear of policy.
Given the politicization of the government response to the pandemic, it will likely come as no surprise that the erosion of trust in the scientific community is driven by partisanship.
In April 2020, 85% of Republicans said they trusted scientists to act in the best interest of the public. In the 2024 survey, that rate was down to 66%, a drop of almost 20 percentage points. For Democratic voters, trust has remained steady, never dipping below 86% (2023) or above 91% (2020).
In the 2024 survey, 35% of Republicans and 67% of Democrats believed scientists should actively participate in public policy debates. In contrast, 64% of Republicans and 32% of Democrats should say they should stay out of policy conversations.
The study found that an overwhelming majority of the country (89%) believes scientists are intelligent, but less than half (45%) think they’re good communicators.
Information on the Pew study, including other results and the survey’s methodology, can be found here.
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