Australians generally report high levels of trust in health and medical science, science and doctors. However, this trust is vulnerable and unevenly distributed – and does not always translate into engagement with evidence-based healthcare.

A July 2026 AAHMS evidence brief examined what Australians say about their trust in health and medical science. It looked at what their behaviours – including vaccination rates, participation in research and engagement with the health system – reveal about the state of trust.

Why measuring trust matters

Trust influences real-world behaviours, including whether people take part in screening programs or medical research, or engage with safe and proven interventions such as vaccination.

Understanding trust therefore requires looking beyond opinion polling to consider the broader context in which people make health decisions. This includes risk perception, structural barriers, service satisfaction, information fatigue and the changing ways that Australian communities encounter health and medical information.

Key findings included:

• Trust in health and medical science (HMS) remains relatively high in Australia, but is increasingly fragile, unevenly distributed, and reflects a broader global decline in trust in institutions.
• The digital information landscape continues to transform how people judge credibility, with scientific, health and government institutions competing with unreliable sources with larger reach.
• Trust in HMS has tangible consequences for public health. Declining vaccination rates demonstrate how a growing but influential minority can impact population health.
• Building trust requires more than better science communication. It depends on addressing broader social and systemic drivers of trust, supporting trusted intermediaries such as GPs, and better understanding how trust varies across Australian communities.

What Australians say

Scientists are the most trusted group of people and healthcare is the most trusted sector in Australia – cited by 77% and 72% or Australians respectively.

However, this trust is not uniform, and depends on the perceived impact, timeliness, ethics and transparency of the scientific research in question – as well as individual and collective experiences of the institutions and professionals involved.

What Australians do

Behavioural indicators provide another lens for understanding trust in HMS. Participation in health and medical research, and engagement with screening programs and vaccination, are all influenced by trust.

The brief identifies vaccination as a clear warning sign. Childhood vaccination rates continue to decline, and nearly half of Australian parents who choose not to vaccinate their children state that they do not trust that vaccination is safe.

Read the full AAHMS report on Measuring Trust below: