Rutgers scholar Katherine Ognyanova is available to comment on the latest Rutgers-Harvard-Northeastern-Northwestern survey data from The COVID-19 Consortium for Understanding the Public’s Policy Preferences Across States.
The researchers polled participants on whether they trust certain institution and individuals to do the right thing to handle the coronavirus outbreak. Fifteen leaders and organizations included: city government, state government, White House Congress, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Anthony Fauci,doctors and hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, scientists and Researchers, police, banks, news media and social media companies. The survey also charts how public opinion changed since late April.
To view the full report and findings, click here. Among the findings:
- The White House and Congress saw the biggest decline in trust from the American people from 59% in late April to 46% in August and from 55% to 42%, respectively.
- Trust in President Trump to manage the COVID-19 crisis declined from 50% to 43%.
- Levels of trust were lower in August than April for every institution and individual tracked, with the smallest decline being Joe Biden, whose trust level only fell from 51% to 50%.
- Republicans expressed higher levels of trust in the police than Democrats or independents, with all three maintaining steady levels from July to August (83% in both cases for Republicans; from 56% to 57% for Democrats, and from 59% to 60% for independents).
- Scientists and medical experts have the highest levels of public trust. Public trust in hospitals and doctors, as well as for scientists and researchers, have all remained at very high levels (over 85%) from April to August.
- Intent to seek the COVID-19 vaccine varies from a low of 53% for people who trust President Trump’s management of the COVID-19 crisis to a high of 71% among respondents who indicate trust in Joe Biden.
- 68% of people who trust Dr. Fauci intend to seek the COVID-19 vaccine, as did 70% who trusted the news media, 68% who trusted social media platforms.
Katherine Ognyanova, an assistant professor at Rutgers’ School of Communication and Information, does research in network science, computational social science, social technology, media, civic and political communication.
The researchers surveyed 21,196 people across all 50 states plus the District of Columbia from Aug. 7 – 26.
For interviews, contact Megan Schumann, megan.schumann@rutgers.edu, 848-445-1907
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