A survey has shown the demographics most likely to be distrustful of the FDA. The results suggest the agency needs to win the trust of conservative women in rural communities who are in poor health or dissatisfied with their healthcare.
Earlier studies showed a sizable slice of the public is skeptical of the FDA, with one survey finding 23% of respondents either didn’t trust the agency very much or had zero faith in the organization. But, while the studies showed trust in the FDA is at a low ebb, there remained gaps in understanding of exactly who is skeptical of the agency and why.
A team at Brigham and Women’s Hospital tried to fill those gaps by surveying 2,021 people about their attitudes to the FDA in October 2022 and published the results in Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics. The survey assessed whether people believe the FDA is competent and effective, acts in the best interest of the American public, abides by rules and regulations and has subject matter expertise.
Overall, the FDA achieved a trust score of 2.87 out of 4. Looking at subpopulations with lower scores provided evidence of which groups may be particularly distrustful of the FDA. Women had significantly a lower trust score, 2.77, than men, 2.97.
Political affiliation was strongly correlated with trust in the FDA. Trust scores ranged from 3.20 among people who said they are extremely liberal to 2.53 among conservatives. The researchers also found a correlation between location and trust, with people in rural areas giving a lower trust score 2.70, than their counterparts in urban environments, 3.08.
The authors cited the findings as evidence of the need for targeted outreach. Effective messaging to the least trusting groups “may look very different from effective messaging for more trusting demographics,” the researchers said. The authors suggest focus groups with patients and community leaders as a way to understand which messages are likely to resonate with different populations.
“The FDA’s ongoing efforts to combat misinformation and its ‘sticking with the facts’ campaign to promote the use of reliable government and academic sources are valuable but, without proper political and sociodemographic targeting, may not address the concerns and fears of the least trusting groups,” the researchers said.
As well as better communication, the authors said the FDA must work to deserve trust, for example by avoiding a repeat of situations such as the Aduhelm debacle. Putting out messaging to build trust while becoming a more trustworthy organization could help but the researchers acknowledge there are limits to what the FDA can do. If people distrust the government, they may be reflexively skeptical of the FDA.