Doctors and scientists are seen as the world’s most trustworthy professions

The 2022 Ipsos Global Trustworthiness Index reveals that doctors and scientists are considered the world’s most trustworthy professions. The Index has tracked trust in many occupations since 2018. On average across 28 countries, 59% of adults surveyed by Ipsos view doctors as trustworthy, while 57% do so with scientists, and 52% with teachers. As in previous years, politicians are least trusted with just a global average of 12% saying they are trustworthy, trailing cabinet officials (16%) and advertising executives (18%).

In the United States, doctors rank as the most trusted group (with a trustworthy score of 60%), followed by teachers (58%) and members of the armed forces (56%); politicians, ad executives, and cabinet officials make up the bottom three as they do globally. Americans are notably more prone to trusting members of the armed forces and of the clergy than the global average (by 16 and 11 points respectively) and less prone to trusting lawyers and pollsters (by 12 points each).

These are some of the findings of a survey of 21,515 adults under the age of 75 conducted between May 27 and June 10, 2022 on Ipsos’s global Advisor platform.

Trends

On average across the 22 countries where the survey has been conducted four times since 2018, the level of trust in doctors and scientists has fallen slightly compared with their pandemic-driven high scores in 2021, but only back to the position they had pre-pandemic. Since last year, trust in doctors has declined by six percentage points while scientists have seen a decrease of four points. Still, both have made up the top two in each year of the Index since 2018. Over the years, there has been little change in the proportion who see ordinary men and women as trustworthy, now at 37% and much in line with previous waves.

The global top 3: doctors, scientists, and teachers

Spain is the country where doctors are most widely trusted, with 71% giving them a 1 or 2 rating on a scale where 1 is very trustworthy and 5 is very untrustworthy. Doctors are held in similar esteem in Mexico (70%) and the Netherlands (69%).

• At 60%, trust in doctors in the U.S. is on par with the global average of 59%. However, it is 10 points lower than it was in 2021. Only five countries show a steeper drop over the past year: Hungary, Poland, Italy, Turkey, and Malaysia.
• In Hungary, trust in doctors has fallen by 21 percentage points between 2021 and 2022, after rising by 19 points between 2019 and 2020. Similarly in Poland, trust has fallen 16 points between 2021 and 2022 (from 55% to 39%) after rising by 12 points between 2019 and 2021.
• There are now four countries where less than half of the public consider doctors to be trustworthy: South Korea, Japan, Hungary, and Poland. In 2021 this was true in only one country, South Korea.

Scientists are most trusted in China (71%), Mexico (70%), and Spain (70%).

• Japan is where they are least likely to be considered trustworthy (37%), followed by South Africa (44%), Poland (48%), and South Korea (49%).
• As in previous years, there has been less movement in trust figures for scientists, although there has been a significant drop in Poland, Hungary, and Italy (by 13 points in all three countries) as well as in the U.S. (by 9 points). In contrast, trust in scientists in Mexico has risen by 10 points over the last year.

On average globally, teachers remain the third-most trusted profession for the fourth wave in a row, with 52% rating them as trustworthy.

• The countries where they are most widely trusted are China (66%), Brazil (64%), and Chile (63%) and those where they are least widely rated as trustworthy are Japan, South Korea, and Poland (17%, 31%, and 34%).
• Since last year, teachers’ trust levels have shifted less than for scientists and doctors. However trust has fallen by 10 points in Poland, nine points in Malaysia, and eight points in Italy.

The global bottom 3: politicians, cabinet officials, and ad execs

As in previous years politicians, cabinet officials, and advertising executives stand out as the professions least widely seen as trustworthy.

• This year, politicians are rated as trustworthy by just 12% on average across the 28 countries surveyed and 10% of Americans, government officials by y 16% and 15%, respectively, and ad executives by 18% and 13%, respectively.
• These scores are mostly in line with those recorded last year. However, in the subset of 22 countries that have been in each wave of the survey, the proportion who find ad executives to be untrustworthy has risen by six points.
• Views towards politicians are lowest in Peru, Argentina, and Chile, where around eight in 10 see them as untrustworthy.

“As we exit the pandemic period, the state of trust in professions appears broadly unchanged," says Ipsos researcher Mike Clemence. "Yet although doctors remain the world’s most trustworthy profession, we have seen a slight decrease in trust overall compared with 2021. While at a global level this just takes trust in these roles back to their pre-pandemic levels, in some countries such as Poland, Hungary, the U.S. and Italy, we have seen more significant decreases in trust in both doctors and scientists. The picture is similar with the professions the world trusts the least: as in previous years, they are politicians and advertisers. Overall, just over one in ten think politicians are trustworthy, and this figure is even lower in much of Latin America, as well as Hungary, Poland and Spain.”

About this study

These are the findings of an Ipsos online survey conducted between May 27 and June 10, 2022. The survey was conducted in 28 countries around the world, via the Ipsos Online Panel system in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Peru, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, and the United States.