As it fights a pandemic, CDC wages a second battle to win back trust

"We're following the science." The line rolls regularly off the tongues of top US health officials – no one more so than CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky.

 

Science dictated recent guidance – widely criticized as confusing – advising fully vaccinated Americans that they could ditch the masks under most circumstances, Walensky said, citing studies showing the coronavirus vaccines not only provide better than 90% protection in real life, but also likely prevent vaccinated people from inadvertently infecting others.

 

But the CDC is not following the science when it comes to talking to the public, communications experts say.

 

There's a scientific approach to winning public trust and confidence, said Michael Pollard, a senior social scientist at RAND who helped lead last year's survey. "The literature on trust suggests there are different buckets of things that can convey to people," he said.

 

"One of those is competence and expertise." There, the CDC is doing well, Pollard said.

 

However, one big mistake, experts like Pollard have pointed out, has been holding briefings under the auspices of the White House. That only serves to further paint the CDC – and other public health experts – with a political brush.

 

Risk communications expert Peter Sandman says the CDC missed an opportunity to reboot when Trump left office and the Biden administration took over. That should have been the time for CDC to admit to mistakes and reorganize its communications strategy.

 

"To earn that second chance at regaining trust, we believe the CDC must first come clean about how it lost trust," Sandman told CNN.

 

Others in the public health field have also had a hard time during this time. The National Association of County and City Health Officials has actually tracked more than 250 public health officials leaving the field since the beginning of the pandemic.