March 05, 2026
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About 4 in 10 Americans are confident that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is providing trustworthy public health information, a recent University of Pennsylvania poll shows.
Americans are much more likely to trust a career scientist or medical group over the current leaders of the federal health department, new polling reveals.
A survey from the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center shows that faith in U.S. health officials is slipping. Though 67% of those polled said they were confident that career scientists at federal health agencies were providing trustworthy information on public health, only 43% expressed the same confidence in their bosses. Just 38% believed Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the secretary of Health and Human Services, was espousing trustworthy information on public health.
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Respondents had slightly more faith in Dr. Mehmet Oz, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, with 42% expressing confidence. That's a significant improvement over the polling numbers when he took office in April 2025. At that time, just 33% said they trusted his information on public health. But Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director, polled higher than both Oz and Kennedy. Just over half, or 54%, of respondents said they were confident he had provided trustworthy information during his tenure.
Those surveyed consistently expressed more trust in professional medical groups like the American Medical Association and American Academy of Pediatrics than federal health officials. The Penn poll found that 77% of U.S. adults were confident in the AAP and 73% in the AMA providing reliable information. Plus, 82% also trusted the American Heart Association's public health messaging. Conversely, 60% expressed confidence in the CDC — a dramatic drop from the 76% who said they trusted the agency's public health information in February 2024, when Joe Biden was president.
"These findings reflect a clear divergence in how Americans view federal health agencies versus major professional health associations," Laura A. Gibson, a senior data analyst at the Annenberg Public Policy Center, said in a statement.
Penn also asked the 1,650 people surveyed about immunizations. Kennedy, an avowed vaccine skeptic, recently oversaw changes to the childhood immunization schedule. One of the more significant revisions was altering the CDC's recommendation that all newborns get vaccinated against hepatitis B; now it is only recommended for babies whose mothers may be infected. The AAP has continued to recommend the vaccine for all newborns. Respondents were more likely to take the AAP's advice by a 4-to-1 margin.
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