Trust in Science Drops Below Pre-COVID Levels, New Poll Finds

Science just lost a slice of the public's confidence — and the timing couldn't be more urgent. According to the Wellcome Global Monitor 2026, launched this week at the World Health Summit in Berlin, global trust in science has fallen below pre-COVID levels. Just 72 percent of people in the 108 countries surveyed across all three waves now say they trust science "some" or "a lot," down from 80 percent in 2020 and below the 77 percent recorded in 2018. For a generation raised on lab-made breakthroughs and climate warnings alike, the slide in trust in science is a quiet alarm: the next vaccine rollout, the next heatwave plan, the next pandemic playbook — all of it leans on public belief that the science is worth trusting.

Nearly one in five people now say they have little or no trust in science at all — 19 percent, up from 13 percent in both previous waves. The findings come from the world's largest study of attitudes to science: more than 140,000 people across 140 countries, polled through the Gallup World Poll with analysis by Ipsos. Wellcome CEO John-Arne Rottingen launched the report at the summit, calling the numbers a signal that science needs to reconnect with the communities it serves. Across the full 140-country sample, the picture is similar — 70 percent expressed trust in 2025. Wellcome notes that trust in science is now below its pre-pandemic level in five global regions, and even in the United States, where 88 percent still report at least some trust, attitudes split sharply along lines of politics, place and gender, with a pronounced urban-rural divide.

The trust gap tracks money

The sharpest divide in the data is financial. Among people who are financially comfortable, 39 percent say they trust science "a lot." Among those struggling to get by, that number nearly halves to 20 percent. Trust in science, it turns out, is partly a story about economic security — when life feels precarious, faith in big institutions frays, and science starts to look like one of them. Wellcome does caution that a methodology change in China affects the global trend line, so researchers are treating the decline as real but urging care in reading the exact size of the shift.

That pattern is reinforced by a second finding: trust in science is markedly higher among people who feel their health system works for them. Among people with a lot of confidence in hospitals and clinics, 43 percent trust science "a lot" — compared with 26 percent globally. And while 81 percent of people say the work of scientists benefits people like them, only 37 percent believe science benefits most people in their country, with one in five saying it benefits very few. Reported by summit coverage, the disconnect suggests the problem isn't simply whether people believe the science — it's whether they see the science working in their own lives.

Why it matters for young people

For Gen Z, this is not an abstract debate. Vaccines, climate action, artificial intelligence, mental health care and the next pandemic all depend on public trust — and that trust is quietly eroding among the people who feel left behind. When the generation that will live with climate consequences the longest doubts whether science serves them, the pipeline from lab to life gets leakier: fewer jabs in arms, weaker support for emissions policy, less appetite for the next round of restrictions when a virus crosses the map. Wellcome's own read is that trust in science is high but fragile — the confidence exists, but it can no longer be taken for granted. The stakes touch every beat of modern life: researchers are still mapping how new tools affect our minds, as recent studies on AI and focus show, and the climate threat is literal, from El Niño's threat to hundreds of millions of kids to the health emergencies the Berlin summit is built to confront.

What Berlin is doing about it

The monitor launched at the World Health Summit 2026, which runs October 11-13 in Berlin under the theme "From Crisis to Resilience: Innovating for Health." The summit brings together more than 4,000 in-person participants from 130 countries, tens of thousands online, and over 400 speakers across more than 75 sessions. Its agenda spans Ebola and infectious disease, antibiotic resistance, pandemic preparedness, health care in conflict settings like Ukraine, climate-related health threats, and a conversation with prospective candidates for the next WHO Director-General. At the opening press conference, one issue cut across almost everything else — but trust in science was the thread running through every session. In a statement, WHS President Axel R. Pries said overlapping crises are challenging global health progress and called for innovation and trust-building.

On the summit's opening days, UNFPA's Diene Keita highlighted Bangladesh's landmark 250 million euro investment in women's health, backed by the European Investment Bank — one example of what happens when institutions and governments invest where confidence matters most. Rebuilding trust in science will take the same logic at global scale: making the benefits of research visible in clinics, classrooms and weather apps, not just in journals.

The full dataset behind the headlines is worth a look: the Wellcome Global Monitor 2026 report lays out the country-by-country breakdown. And for a reminder of what trust in science buys, the pipeline from lab to life is still running — from a glioblastoma drug that crosses the blood-brain barrier to new views of ancient Mars. The Wellcome data says the real question isn't whether the pipeline works — it's whether people trust science enough to believe it works for them. More coverage of the findings: Brand Economy, AsheNewsDaily, and Libya Newswire on the Berlin summit.