Trends in U.S. public confidence in science and opportunities for progress.

In recent years, many questions have been raised about whether public confidence in science is changing. To clarify recent trends in the public's confidence and factors that are associated with these feelings, an effort initiated by the National Academies' Strategic Council for Research Excellence, Integrity, and Trust (the Strategic Council) analyzed findings from multiple survey research organizations. The Strategic Council's effort, which began in 2022, found that U.S. public confidence in science, the scientific community, and leaders of scientific communities is high relative to other civic, cultural, and governmental institutions for which researchers regularly collect such data. However, confidence in these institutions has fallen during the previous 5 years. Science's decline, while real, is similar to or less than that in the other groups. A recent study goes into greater detail by exploring public views of science. From these data, we observe that many of the surveyed U.S. public question the extent to which scientists share their values or overcome personal biases when presenting conclusions. At the same time, large majorities agree on certain types of actions that they want scientists to take. For example, 84% respond that it is "somewhat important" or "very important" for scientists to disclose their funders. Ninety-two percent (92%) offer the same responses to scientists "being open to changing their minds based on new evidence." Collectively, these data clarify how the U.S. public views science and scientists. They also suggest actions that can affect public confidence in science and scientists in the years to come.

Factors Assessing Science's Self-Presentation model and their effect on conservatives' and liberals' support for funding science.

A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of responses to 13 questions from a 2022 national probability sample of 1,154 US adults supported the existence of five factors that we argue assess perceptions of Factors Assessing Science's Self-Presentation (FASS). These factors also predict support for increasing federal funding of science and, separately, supporting federal funding of basic research. Each of the factors reflects perceptions of a key facet of scientists' self-presentation, science/scientists' adherence to professed norms, or science's benefits: specifically, that scientists are Credible, Prudent, and Unbiased and that science is Self-Correcting and Beneficial. The FASS model explained 40.6% of the variance in support for increasing federal funding for science and 33.7% in support for basic research. For both dependent variables, conservatives were less likely to be supportive when they perceived that science/scientists fail to overcome biases. The interactions between political ideology and both Prudence and Beneficial, however, were significant only when predicting Basic Research support. In that case, there were no differences between conservatives and liberals when perceptions of benefit were low, but when high, liberals' perception of benefit had a stronger association with support for funding than conservatives'. Among those perceiving that scientists lack prudence, liberals were more likely to support funding basic research than conservatives, but the difference disappeared when perceptions of prudence were very high. The factors could serve as across-time indicators of the public's assessment of the state of science.

Science-Consistent Climate Health Beliefs As Predictors of Climate Behaviors and Support for Inflation Reduction Act Provisions and a Carbon Emissions Tax.

Understanding the factors associated with acceptance of climate action is central in designing effective climate change communication strategies. An exploratory factor analysis of 12 science-consistent beliefs about the existence, causes, and consequences of climate change reveals three underlying factors: climate change [a] is real and human caused, [b] has increased the frequency of extreme weather events, and [c] negatively affects public health. In the presence of demographic, ideological, and party controls, this health factor significantly predicts a 3-6 percentage point increase in respondents' [a] willingness to advocate for climate change; [b] reported personal pro-climate behaviors; and [c] support for government policies addressing climate change. These results are robust when controlling for respondents' underlying belief in the existence and causes of climate change, respondent worry, self-efficacy, and respondent belief that extreme weather events and heat waves are increasing. These findings suggest ways to bolster public support for climate policies that may otherwise be at risk.

The role of non-COVID-specific and COVID-specific factors in predicting a shift in willingness to vaccinate: A panel study.

Although declines in intent to vaccinate had been identified in international surveys conducted between June and October 2020, including in the United States, some individuals in the United States who previously expressed reluctance said, in spring 2021, that they were willing to vaccinate. That change raised the following questions: What factors predicted an increased willingness to inoculate against COVID-19? And, to what extent was the change driven by COVID-specific factors, such as personal worry about the disease and COVID-specific misinformation, and to what extent by background (non-COVID-specific) factors, such as trust in medical authorities, accurate/inaccurate information about vaccination, vaccination history, and patterns of media reliance? This panel study of more than 8,000 individuals found that trust in health authorities anchored acceptance of vaccination and that knowledge about vaccination, flu vaccination history, and patterns of media reliance played a more prominent role in shifting individuals from vaccination hesitance to acceptance than COVID-specific factors. COVID-specific conspiracy beliefs did play a role, although a lesser one. These findings underscore the need to reinforce trust in health experts, facilitate community engagement with them, and preemptively communicate the benefits and safety record of authorized vaccines. The findings suggest, as well, the need to identify and deploy messaging able to undercut health-related conspiracy beliefs when they begin circulating.

What Caused the Narrowing of Black-White COVID-19 Vaccination Disparity in the US? A Test of 5 Hypotheses.

Despite differential uptake of COVID-19 vaccination between Black and non-Hispanic White Americans early in the pandemic, the gap narrowed over time. We tested five hypotheses that could explain the reduction in the disparity. Using a national probability panel of over 1800 individuals surveyed from April 2021 to July 2022, we assessed receipt of recommended doses of COVID-19 vaccines along with (a) reported exposure to deaths due to COVID-19, (b) trust in US health authorities, such as the CDC, (c) knowledge about the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccination, (d) media use as a source of information, and (e) access to COVID-19 vaccines. Only increases in knowledge about the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines uniquely mediated the increase in vaccination uptake among non-Hispanic Black compared to White, Asian and Hispanic panelists. While trust in CDC and exposure to COVID-19 deaths were related to vaccination acceptance at baseline, those factors were not associated with change in reported vaccination coverage. In addition, neither differential access nor media use explained the increase. Enhanced knowledge about the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccination transmitted from within the Black community likely helped to increase vaccination relative to other racial-ethnic groups.

The Politicization of Climate Science: Media Consumption, Perceptions of Science and Scientists, and Support for Policy.

Differential media treatment of climate change, including conservative media's tendency to reject the anthropogenic climate change scientific consensus, has reinforced polarized perceptions of climate change. Studies have found differences in coverage patterns and in perceptions among those relying more heavily on conservative rather than liberal or moderate media. This scholarship has been limited by narrow measurements of media exposure, climate-related outcomes, and the mechanism of effects. We analyzed nationally representative US data (N = 1,181) using measures that included not only reported use of mainstream print, cable, and social media captured in past research, but also science programming, as well as far-right, alternative-health, and Christian media. On average, participants relied more heavily on centrist and liberal media, followed by Fox News and social media. The results corroborate findings associating exposure to centrist media with pro-climate attitudes, and conservative media, including Fox News with the opposite views. Use of far-right outlets was associated with the lowest levels of belief in anthropogenic climate change, perceptions of personal threat, and support for climate-friendly policy. Reliance on science media was associated with pro-climate views. Most associations were mediated via perceptions of science and scientists (using the Factors Associated with Self-Presentation of Science, FASS scale).

Signaling the trustworthiness of science.

Trust in science increases when scientists and the outlets certifying their work honor science's norms. Scientists often fail to signal to other scientists and, perhaps more importantly, the public that these norms are being upheld. They could do so as they generate, certify, and react to each other's findings: for example, by promoting the use and value of evidence, transparent reporting, self-correction, replication, a culture of critique, and controls for bias. A number of approaches for authors and journals would lead to more effective signals of trustworthiness at the article level. These include article badging, checklists, a more extensive withdrawal ontology, identity verification, better forward linking, and greater transparency.

Crisis or self-correction: Rethinking media narratives about the well-being of science.

After documenting the existence and exploring some implications of three alternative news narratives about science and its challenges, this essay outlines ways in which those who communicate science can more accurately convey its investigatory process, self-correcting norms, and remedial actions, without in the process legitimizing an unwarranted "science is broken/in crisis" narrative. The three storylines are: (i) quest discovery, which features scientists producing knowledge through an honorable journey; (ii) counterfeit quest discovery, which centers on an individual or group of scientists producing a spurious finding through a dishonorable one; and (iii) a systemic problem structure, which suggests that some of the practices that protect science are broken, or worse, that science is no longer self-correcting or in crisis.

Transparency in authors' contributions and responsibilities to promote integrity in scientific publication.

In keeping with the growing movement in scientific publishing toward transparency in data and methods, we propose changes to journal authorship policies and procedures to provide insight into which author is responsible for which contributions, better assurance that the list is complete, and clearly articulated standards to justify earning authorship credit. To accomplish these goals, we recommend that journals adopt common and transparent standards for authorship, outline responsibilities for corresponding authors, adopt the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) (docs.casrai.org/CRediT) methodology for attributing contributions, include this information in article metadata, and require authors to use the ORCID persistent digital identifier (https://orcid.org). Additionally, we recommend that universities and research institutions articulate expectations about author roles and responsibilities to provide a point of common understanding for discussion of authorship across research teams. Furthermore, we propose that funding agencies adopt the ORCID identifier and accept the CRediT taxonomy. We encourage scientific societies to further authorship transparency by signing on to these recommendations and promoting them through their meetings and publications programs.

Patterns of Media Use, Strength of Belief in COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories, and the Prevention of COVID-19 From March to July 2020 in the United States: Survey Study.

BACKGROUND: Holding conspiracy beliefs regarding the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States has been associated with reductions in both actions to prevent the spread of the infection (eg, mask wearing) and intentions to accept a vaccine when one becomes available. Patterns of media use have also been associated with acceptance of COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs. Here we ask whether the type of media on which a person relies increased, decreased, or had no additional effect on that person's COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs over a 4-month period. OBJECTIVE: We used panel data to explore whether use of conservative and social media in the United States, which were previously found to be positively related to holding conspiracy beliefs about the origins and prevention of COVID-19, were associated with a net increase in the strength of those beliefs from March to July of 2020. We also asked whether mainstream news sources, which were previously found to be negatively related to belief in pandemic-related conspiracies, were associated with a net decrease in the strength of such beliefs over the study period. Additionally, we asked whether subsequent changes in pandemic conspiracy beliefs related to the use of media were also related to subsequent mask wearing and vaccination intentions. METHODS: A survey that we conducted with a national US probability sample in March of 2020 and again in July with the same 840 respondents assessed belief in pandemic-related conspiracies, use of various types of media information sources, actions taken to prevent the spread of the disease and intentions to vaccinate, and various demographic characteristics. Change across the two waves was analyzed using path analytic techniques. RESULTS: We found that conservative media use predicted an increase in conspiracy beliefs (ß=.17, 99% CI .10-.25) and that reliance on mainstream print predicted a decrease in their belief (ß=-.08, 99% CI -.14 to -.02). Although many social media platforms reported downgrading or removing false or misleading content, ongoing use of such platforms by respondents predicted growth in conspiracy beliefs as well (ß=.072, 99% CI .018-.123). Importantly, conspiracy belief changes related to media use between the two waves of the study were associated with the uptake of mask wearing and changes in vaccination intentions in July. Unlike other media, use of mainstream broadcast television predicted greater mask wearing (ß=.17, 99% CI .09-.26) and vaccination intention (ß=.08, 95% CI .02-.14), independent of conspiracy beliefs. CONCLUSIONS: The findings point to the need for greater efforts on the part of commentators, reporters, and guests on conservative media to report verifiable information about the pandemic. The results also suggest that social media platforms need to be more aggressive in downgrading, blocking, and counteracting claims about COVID-19 vaccines, claims about mask wearing, and conspiracy beliefs that have been judged problematic by public health authorities.

Russian Twitter Accounts and the Partisan Polarization of Vaccine Discourse, 2015-2017.

Objectives. To understand how Twitter accounts operated by the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) discussed vaccines to increase the credibility of their manufactured personas.Methods. We analyzed 2.82 million tweets published by 2689 IRA accounts between 2015 and 2017. Combining unsupervised machine learning and network analysis to identify "thematic personas" (i.e., accounts that consistently share the same topics), we analyzed the ways in which each discussed vaccines.Results. We found differences in volume and valence of vaccine-related tweets among 9 thematic personas. Pro-Trump personas were more likely to express antivaccine sentiment. Anti-Trump personas expressed support for vaccination. Others offered a balanced valence, talked about vaccines neutrally, or did not tweet about vaccines.Conclusions. IRA-operated accounts discussed vaccines in manners consistent with fabricated US identities.Public Health Implications. IRA accounts discussed vaccines online in ways that evoked political identities. This could exacerbate recently emerging partisan gaps relating to vaccine misinformation, as differently valenced messages were targeted at different segments of the US public. These sophisticated targeting efforts, if repeated and increased in reach, could reduce vaccination rates and magnify health disparities.

Policy Views and Negative Beliefs About Vaccines in the United States, 2019.

Objectives. To determine whether holding vaccine misconceptions, in the form of negative beliefs about vaccines, correlates with opposing governmental action at all levels designed to increase vaccination (e.g., removing personal belief and religious vaccine exemptions).Methods. Drawing on data from a nationally representative survey of 1938 US adults, we assessed the relation between negative beliefs about vaccines and provaccination policies.Results. Beyond sociodemographic and policy-relevant variables, such as gender and partisan affiliation, questionable negative beliefs about vaccines are the strongest predictor of opposition to policies designed to increase vaccination.Conclusions. Negative beliefs about vaccines in the general population may thwart the passage or implementation of policies designed to increase vaccination. Implementing strategies that reduce these negative beliefs should be a priority of educators and public health officials.

The Effects of Zika Virus Risk Coverage on Familiarity, Knowledge and Behavior in the U.S. - A Time Series Analysis Combining Content Analysis and a Nationally Representative Survey.

This study assessed the effects of the February through September 2016 American news media's coverage of Zika Virus (ZIKV) risk on the U.S. public's familiarity, knowledge and behavior in the form of interpersonal discussions. A content analysis (N = 2,782 pieces) revealed that the Rio Olympic Games elicited a spike in coverage of Zika. We also found that newsworthy and easy- to- depict aspects of the disease, specifically its transmission by mosquitoes and its relation to microcephaly were covered more extensively than its sexual transmission and transmissibility from an infected person who is asymptomatic. Nevertheless, survey data over the same period of time (N = 37,180 respondents) revealed that the general amount of coverage, rather than the specifics about Zika transmission and its consequences, influenced the public's familiarity, knowledge, and behavior.

Intentions to Seek Information About the Influenza Vaccine: The Role of Informational Subjective Norms, Anticipated and Experienced Affect, and Information Insufficiency Among Vaccinated and Unvaccinated People.

When deciding whether to vaccinate, people often seek information through consequential processes that are not currently well understood. A survey of a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults (N = 2,091) explored the factors associated with intentions to seek influenza vaccine information in the 2018-2019 influenza season. This survey shed light on what motivates intentions to seek information about the influenza vaccine through the lens of the risk information seeking and processing (RISP) model. The model explained information-seeking intentions well among both unvaccinated and vaccinated respondents. Key findings show that informational subjective norms, information insufficiency, and different types of affect are strong predictors of information-seeking intentions. Theoretical insights on extending the RISP model and practical guidance on designing interventions are provided.

Misinformation and the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.

This Viewpoint posits that to improve public understanding of the system, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) could use a more accurate name, well-defined guidance about the reporting system's nature and use, and comprehensible information about an event's verification status.

Intentions to use a novel Zika vaccine: the effects of misbeliefs about the MMR vaccine and perceptions about Zika.

Background: People's intentions to use vaccines are influenced by their beliefs about both the specific vaccine and the disease it prevents. In the absence of firm beliefs about Zika virus (ZIKV), individuals may base their intentions to vaccinate against it on beliefs about other vaccines, and specifically the misbelief that MMR causes autism. Methods: A survey of 3337 Americans, using a random-digit-dialing sample of landline telephone households and cell-phones. Results: Intentions to use a Zika vaccine were influenced by beliefs about Zika, science in general, and MMR. Intentions were positively influenced by perceived severity of and vulnerability to Zika, as well as belief in science's efficacy. However, intentions were negatively influenced by the belief that MMR causes autism in children. Conclusion: The misbelief about MMR and autism may reduce people's intentions to use a new Zika vaccine. However, perceptions of severity of and vulnerability to Zika may increase intentions. Implications for science educators and public health officials are discussed.

Sources affecting knowledge and behavior responses to the Zika virus in US households with current pregnancy, intended pregnancy and a high probability of unintended pregnancy.

Background: This study examined the influences of information sources on Zika-relevant knowledge and behaviors in US households containing members who are pregnant, intend to become pregnant, or have a higher probability of unintended pregnancy in Zika-affected regions (i.e. respondents who are younger, are black, have less education, are unmarried, and reside in the southern USA). Methods: Over 32 000 US adults completed a survey measuring Zika-relevant knowledge and behaviors along with information sources (e.g. discussing Zika with practitioners), general media usage (e.g. TV) and demographic information over 30 weeks. Results: Respondents in the group with (versus without) either pregnancy or intended pregnancy were more likely to use all information sources, which in turn created differences in knowledge and behavior responses. To gauge information sources in US-South respondents with a high probability of having a household member with unintended pregnancy based on demographics, younger, less-educated, unmarried, black respondents had fewer Zika discussion with practitioners than another group. Conclusions: Efforts to increase Zika-related knowledge and protective behaviors should target households with members who are pregnant or intending to become pregnant via practitioners, family and friends. Additional efforts should target information channels to reach younger, less educated, unmarried, black respondents, which are at risk for unintended pregnancy.