Nearly nine in ten Americans say they trust their own doctor or nurse to give them reliable information about public health. Barely six in ten say the same about the federal agencies that generate most of that information.
That gap is the central finding of a long-running survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. The personal relationship has held steady. Institutional confidence has not.
The practical consequence is a distribution problem. When a federal agency issues guidance on vaccines, food safety, or an outbreak, the message increasingly has to travel through a clinician to land, because a substantial share of the public no longer takes it on the agency's authority alone.
The Numbers Behind the Split
In August, 87 percent of respondents said they were confident that their doctor, nurse, or other primary health care provider provides trustworthy information about matters of public health. That figure is statistically unchanged from 88 percent in September 2024. Within that total, 46 percent said they were very confident and 42 percent somewhat confident, while 8 percent said they were not confident and 4 percent reported having no provider.
Confidence in federal agencies moved in the other direction over the same period. According to the policy center's release on provider confidence, confidence in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stood at 61 percent, down significantly from 72 percent in September 2024. Confidence in the Food and Drug Administration was 59 percent, down from 73 percent. Confidence in the National Institutes of Health fell from 74 percent to 61 percent.
The share saying they were very confident fell further still. That figure dropped from 29 percent to 13 percent for the CDC, from 23 percent to 11 percent for the FDA, and from 27 percent to 12 percent for the NIH.
The survey was conducted August 4 to 17 among 1,904 U.S. adults by SSRS, with an estimated margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level. Full figures are available in the survey topline. The center has run its science and public health survey since April 2021, though the wording changed along the way. Early waves asked about trustworthy information on preventing and treating COVID-19, and the current phrasing about matters of public health dates to June 2023.
The policy center is direct about what the trend does not show. "We don't see evidence in our data that the Trump administration is restoring trust," said Laura A. Gibson, an APPC research analyst. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in late August that the administration is restoring faith in the public health agencies so people will accept its advice.
Reading a Survey Without Overreading It
A few limits matter before drawing conclusions. This is a survey of stated confidence, not a measure of behavior. It does not establish that anyone declined a vaccine, ignored a recall, or skipped a screening because of how they feel about an agency.
The survey also measures confidence in agencies as institutions, which is not the same as confidence in any particular piece of guidance. People routinely follow advice from sources they say they distrust, and distrust in an institution can coexist with acceptance of its specific recommendations.
Declines of 11 to 14 percentage points across three agencies over roughly two years are large relative to the margin of error, so the direction of the trend is clear even if this survey does not establish its causes. The center reports the gap between confidence in a personal provider and confidence in the three agencies now runs 26 to 28 percentage points, compared with 14 to 16 points in September 2024. An earlier report on the same decline placed most of the drop in 2025.
The Everyday Situations Where This Shows Up
The gap has concrete effects in ordinary appointments, and this fall offers a useful example.
The CDC published its seasonal influenza vaccination clinical considerations this week, stating that the recommendations from the July 2025 immunization schedule remain in effect for the 2026-2027 season because of legal uncertainties and inquiries. That is an unusual sentence for a routine seasonal document, and it is the kind of thing a patient encountering it secondhand may find harder to interpret than a clinician does.
The same pattern applies to a recalled food product, a drug safety communication, or an outbreak advisory. Each is written by an agency and delivered, in practice, at a pharmacy counter or in an exam room.
For households, the useful takeaway is not about politics. It is that the person best positioned to translate a federal announcement into a decision for a specific family is a clinician who knows that family's medical history. A pharmacist counts here too, and is often more accessible than a physician appointment.
The Load This Places on Clinicians
The finding also describes a burden. If agencies are trusted less and individual providers are trusted about the same, then more of the work of public health communication falls on people seeing patients in short appointment slots.
That has cost and access implications. A person with a primary care provider, insurance, and the ability to take time off work can get a federal recommendation explained. A person without those things gets the announcement and nothing else. The trust gap therefore risks widening existing gaps in who acts on public health guidance, not just changing who believes it.
The survey offers one small measure of who sits outside that relationship: the 4 percent who reported having no provider at all. Community health centers, which charge on a sliding scale, and pharmacists, who can answer many vaccine and medication questions without an appointment, are the most realistic points of contact for that group. Both are also cheaper and faster to reach than a new-patient appointment.
There is a second consequence worth naming. Clinicians who spend appointment time relitigating federal guidance have less of it for the reason the patient came in, and that tradeoff does not appear in any survey.
The Annenberg Center runs this survey repeatedly, so the next wave will show whether these figures stabilize, recover, or fall further. What the current data establish is narrow and worth stating plainly: the decline is real, it spans three agencies, and it has not so far affected how people feel about their own clinician.
Key Questions Answered
What did the survey find? In August, 87 percent of respondents expressed confidence in their own health care provider on public health matters, compared with 61 percent for the CDC, 59 percent for the FDA, and 61 percent for the NIH.
How much did agency confidence change? Compared with September 2024, CDC confidence fell from 72 percent, FDA from 73 percent, and NIH from 74 percent. The share saying they were very confident fell by roughly half or more at each agency.
How reliable are these numbers? The survey included 1,904 adults with an estimated margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.
Does this mean people are refusing vaccines or ignoring recalls? The survey measures stated confidence, not behavior. It does not establish that anyone changed a health decision because of how they feel about an agency.
Who conducted the research? The Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, with fieldwork by SSRS, as part of a longitudinal survey running since April 2021.
Why does the gap matter practically? Federal guidance increasingly reaches people through clinicians rather than directly, which places more of the communication burden on individual providers and pharmacists.
What about people without a regular doctor? Four percent of respondents reported having no provider. Community health centers with sliding-scale fees and pharmacists are the most accessible alternatives for that group.
