Recent years have been marked by an erosion of public trust in science, public health, and vaccines. Little is known about evidence-based strategies to restore trust. We first aimed to instill a feeling of vulnerability in participants by asking three questions about global development, which are commonly answered incorrectly. We then guided participants through a peer-reviewed study on the effect of COVID-19 vaccines on fertility and asked six easy questions. We hypothesized that people would be empowered to believe the conclusions of the study and with that, trust would increase. We found that the intervention increased trust in science (adjusted relative risk ratio (aRRR: 1.69, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.30-2.20), public health (aRRR: 1.38, 95% CI: 1.08-1.77), and vaccines (aRRR: 1.38, 95% CI: 1.07-1.77). However, the intervention backfired (i.e., decreased trust) for trust in science (aRRR: 1.61, 95% CI: 1.23-2.12) overall, and specifically among people who were wrong and uncertain about their answers. The intervention both significantly increased and decreased beliefs that COVID-19 vaccines cause infertility. While this short intervention managed to increase trust in science, future iterations should be more responsive to baseline levels of trust and beliefs in false information.
Winters et al. (2026) studied this question.