Building trust in science is essential for progress. Explore the challenges, insights, and actionable ways the UMB community can foster effective, inclusive science communication.
Read about current trends in science communication and science communication-related activities around the University of Maryland, Baltimore in SciComm Spotlight, the monthly column of the School of Graduate Studies’ (SGS) Science Communication (SciComm) certificate program. To see previous SciComm Spotlight columns, visit the program’s website.
Trust in science and scientists is a key issue that social scientists continue to explore. It boils down to a basic question: Is there public trust in science and scientists? The answers to this question are multifaceted and can vary depending on who is asking the question, who is answering it, and how data is collected to address it. But we certainly cannot afford public audiences not to trust science. Much of scientific research is funded by the U.S. government and in extension by taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars. And well-funded scientific research is needed to address pressing issues such as the increase of infectious diseases, the impact of technological innovations on people’s lives, effects of environmental pollution on our climate, cures for currently incurable diseases, and access to health care, to name just a few.
So, what do some research studies reveal about the level of public trust in science and scientists?
In February of this year, the journal Nature reported that trust in science across the globe is high. A study of more than 70,000 people worldwide (from 68 countries) found that the average score measuring trust in science was moderately high. This study also reported that the U.S. participants in the study seemed to have “above-average levels of trust in scientists.”
Three months prior, in November 2023, the Pew Research Center stated that in the U.S., trust in scientists is lower than before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Much of the Pew historical data seems to suggest that trust in science and scientists had been fairly stable for many decades, but that changed at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, the latest Pew data shows an overall decline in the number of U.S. Americans who think that science has a positive effect on society. At the onset of the coronavirus outbreak, 73 percent of U.S. Americans viewed science as having a mostly positive effect on society; at the end of 2023, it was only 57 percent.
Even worse, only 59 percent of U.S. adults, according to Pew, think that scientists likely act in the public’s best interest — compared to 73 percent at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This divergence in findings raises important questions: How can we bridge these differing perceptions of trust, and what can we do to bolster public trust in science? As a researcher, I seek clear, reproducible answers, yet these studies highlight how trust in science can fluctuate across different populations, political affiliations, and measurement methods.
To recap, the Pew data finds lower trust in science and scientists in the U.S.; the global data finds moderately high trust, even at an above average level for the U.S. participants. The Pew data (which was based on 8,842 participants) can compare its latest results to previously conducted surveys. This is something that the global study wasn’t able to do. And there are other differences between these two data sets, such as the study design, the questions participants were asked, i.e., the way “trust in science” or “trust in scientists” was measured, to name just a few.
But there is a significant commonality: Both studies point out a connection between people’s trust levels around science and scientists on the one hand, and their political leanings on the other hand. In the global study, those with a “left-leaning” political orientation seemed to express higher trust in science and scientists. The Pew data reported a similar trend. Those participants who identified as Republican or Republican-leaning independents had lost their trust in scientists and medical scientists at much higher rates. As a matter of fact, the number of Republicans who don’t seem to trust that scientists act in the public’s best interest more than doubled (from 14 percent in April 2020 to 38 percent in 2023).
Where does this leave us? How do we rebuild people’s trust in science and scientists? This data doesn’t provide us too many solutions, but certainly hints at the need to take science communication seriously, especially the necessity to engage broad audiences across the political spectrum. It demonstrates that trust-building and effective communication are inextricably linked. Yet, many scientists, especially early career ones, struggle to see their public scholarship and efforts to communicate science more broadly recognized in the same way as scholarly publications. Arguably, though, communication of science with broader public audiences will likely restore and bolster trust in science at higher rates than just traditional research articles, however excellently researched and written, that are published in academic journals that are likely only accessible to a small group of academics.
If the Pew data is to be believed, we cannot afford to let the numbers drop further — we must invest in the rebuilding of trust through effective science communication. The impassioned plea for “Rebuilding Public Trust in Science” by Jennifer Bead and Monica Wang at Boston University echoes that.
So where does that leave us in terms of actions? I encourage readers of this column to start with these resources that can bolster communication skills and deepen understanding of science communication practices and research:
- The Op-Ed Project. A social venture founded to increase the range of voices and quality of ideas we hear in the world.
- Science Communication Programs (this is just a small selection)
- The Public Face of Science Project. The American Academy of Arts & Sciences issued three reports. from 2018-2020. They are a great place to start exploring the role of public engagement with science in the U.S.
- Communicating Science Across Political Divides. A 2021 report by Clio Heslop, Anthony Dudo, and Jacob Copple at the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin.
But more importantly, we need to talk to each other, faculty to staff to students to community members to family members, etc., about the important role that science plays in our lives and the lives of those within and outside the U.S. And we need to do so across political ideologies and beliefs and emphasize that scientific research is there to benefit all of us, regardless of how we cast our ballot.
Author Information
Isabell Cserno May, PhD, is an associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Graduate Studies, where she directs and teaches in the Science Communication Certificate Program. May also directs the UMB Writing Center and is passionate about equity-based and social justice-oriented pedagogies.