Do Americans Trust Scientific Experts?

[#1]

Paper 1195-2021

Authors

 Jaswinder Singh, Kalyan Alisetty, Vinil Rayala, Taylor Rebollar, Oklahoma State University

Abstract

This session presents the results from an analysis of Americans Mistrust in Scientific Experts. Pew Research conducted a survey asking the general American public questions about their views and opinions regarding their level of trust in scientific experts. The data includes variables such as demographics, responses to survey questions intended to measure the level of trust, and responses to factual questions to assess knowledge. The various categories of scientific experts used in this study were the following: Medical Doctor; Medical Research Scientist; Dietician; Nutrition Research Scientist; Environmental Health Specialist and Environmental Research Scientist. This report presents results from descriptive analyses that highlight trends based on the responses given. Predictive models can take responses from an individual and predict their level of trust in a scientific expert of a certain category. This session highlights variables that are most important in predicting a persons opinion of a scientific expert.

 

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