Trust in government and previously trusted institutions is lower than it used to be. People’s trust in basic science and expertise is also down. COVID-19 pandemic changes and confusion exacerbated these problems and skepticism about science continues, which makes it tough for scientists and technical experts to communicate facts and truth.

 Science, data, values and policy frequently get all mixed together and trip over each other in conversations, which creates public perception problems and, therefore, erodes trust. When science evolves and data changes (which science and data inevitably do), so often then does the policy driven by those evolving truths. Communicators need to be clear that what they’re saying is either a what (fact), or a why it’s important (values), or a how they’re dealing with it (policy).

Times change and so do we – often reluctantly. Pew Research has been sampling and measuring us for a very long time and so it’s interesting to see how our thinking has changed over the past couple of decades.