Trust in government health agencies continues to erode, often along partisan lines

health care technology

The decline in public trust in U.S. government health agencies that began during the pandemic continues as the nation transitions to a new administration and Congress. Although large shares of adults continue to trust their own doctors to make the right recommendations when it comes to health issues, this number also has decreased.

According to the KFF Tracking Poll on Health Information and Trust:

• Sixty-one percent trust the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “a great deal” or “a fair amount” to make the right recommendations on health, down slightly from 66% in June 2023.
• Trust in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and state and local public health officials each dropped by double digits (from 65% to 53% and 64% to 54%, respectively).
• Individual doctors remain the most trusted source of health information, although the share saying they trust their own doctor “a great deal” or “a fair amount” to make the right health recommendations also declined from 93% to 85% over the same period.

The partisan divide in trust in government health agencies that emerged during the pandemic remain. Democrats are about 30 percentage points more likely than Republicans to say they trust the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to make the right recommendations on health (73% vs. 42%). Similar partisan gaps exist in agencies that fall under HHS, including the CDC, FDA, CMS and scientists working for the National Institutes of Health. The opposite pattern is true when it comes to trust in President Trump’s picks to run some of those agencies.