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, according to new KFF polling released yesterday.
In a reversal of previous trends, 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 group found.
The poll was conducted online and by telephone in English and Spanish among a nationally representative group of 1,380 US adults from April 8 to April 15. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage point for the full sample.
Less trust in COVID vaccines, especially for certain groups
When KFF pollsters dug into deeper vaccine safety issues, they found that most adults are somewhat confident about many routine vaccines, including measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR), pneumonia, and shingles.
Respondents were less confident, however, about the safety of 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 they were safe.
Looking at perceptions about mRNA vaccines, KFF found that twice as many adults thought they were "generally safe" (32%) as said they are "generally unsafe" (16%). About half of respondents said they didn't know enough about the technology, and nearly half had heard the false claim that mRNA vaccines can alter a person's DNA. Republicans, independents, and Hispanic adults were more likely to say the myth is definitely or probably true.
Partisan divide over trust in vaccine info sources
To tease out whom respondents trust most about vaccine safety information, the investigators asked about a variety of sources, finding that individual doctors held the highest share of trust, and both Democrats and Republicans were likely to trust their child's pediatrician at least a fair amount.
More Democrats than Republicans were likely to say they trusted vaccine safety messages from local health departments, pharmaceutical companies, or children's schools or daycare centers.
On the other hand, Republicans were more likely to trust President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as reliable sources of vaccine information, at levels similar to their trust in personal doctors.
Shaky perceptions about fulfilling core missions
KFF researchers also asked respondents about how confident they are in government agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to fulfil their core missions. Less than half expressed confidence, with just 32% reporting they felt sure the agencies would act independently without pressure from outside influences.
Trust in these agencies as reliable sources of vaccine information has fallen among Democrats by double digits, including for the CDC (70% now vs 88% in 2023) and the FDA (67% vs 86%).
Most Democrats (73%) and 45% of Republicans said the agencies aren't paying enough attention to science when making decisions on vaccines. Larger shares of Democrats said that, under the Trump administration, health agencies aren't paying enough attention to science, and respondents were divided over whether the process is tilted in favor or pharmaceutical companies or the personal beliefs of health officials running the agencies, such as Kennedy.
