Polling Shows Trust in Federal Health Agencies Shifting Along Partisan Lines

New KFF polling shows that “trust in vaccine information from government health agencies has shifted along partisan lines following health agency leadership changes and major agency restructuring under the Trump administration.” CIDRAP has the news.

Trust in government vaccine information has “declined in Democrats, but the share of Republicans who have a ‘great deal’ or ‘fair amount’ of trust has risen by about 10 percentage points from 2023.” The poll was conducted across a group of 1,380 U.S. adults.

The pollsters found that “most adults are somewhat confident about many routine vaccines,” like MMR and shingles. They were less confident overall about COVID vaccines, “with just over half (56%) of adults saying they were ‘somewhat confident’ in COVID vaccine safety, with results showing a partisan divide – 87% of Democrats said they were safe, but just 3 in 10 Republicans” said the same.

Democrats and Republicans both “were likely to trust their child’s pediatrician at least a fair amount.” Republicans were more likely to trust “President Donald Trump and…Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as reliable sources of vaccine information, at levels similar to their trust in personal doctors.” Democrats placed more trust in “local health departments, pharmaceutical companies, or children’s schools or daycare centers.”

Less than half of respondents expressed confidence that the CDC and FDA “would act independently without pressure from outside influences.” Trust in these agencies as sources of vaccine information has fallen among Democrats by “double digits.”