Trust in public health agencies during COVID-19 driven by beliefs that agencies led with science-based recommendations

In the first nationally representative survey of U.S. adults on reasons for trust in federal, state, and local public health agencies’ information during the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and colleagues found that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was highly trusted for information by more than one-third of U.S. adults, whereas state and local health departments were highly trusted by about one-quarter. An additional 37-51% of adults trusted these public health agencies somewhat, and less than 10% reported no trust at all in these agencies for health information.