Personal Providers Hold Steady at 87% Trust While CDC Confidence Falls to 61% in 2026 Annenberg Survey

The longitudinal APPC survey tracked confidence from 2021 through August 2026. Personal provider trust remained high at 87% with 46% very confident, statistically stable across 2023-2026 waves. In contrast, CDC confidence fell from 72% in September 2024 to 61% in 2026, with very confident responses halving to 13%. FDA and NIH showed parallel declines to 59-64%. Leadership turnover under the second Trump administration, including departures of Makary, Prasad, Monarez and Houry, coincided with these shifts. The pattern echoes prior episodes of agency politicization, such as 2020-2021 COVID messaging volatility documented in JAMA Network Open analyses of trust erosion. Personal providers appear insulated because interactions remain individualized rather than policy-driven. However, this insulation may not scale if providers face conflicting federal guidance on vaccines or chronic disease, a dynamic observed in earlier observational studies of HPV vaccine uptake during state-federal mismatches. Further surveys will need to test whether trust in providers translates into higher adherence when agency recommendations diverge from clinical practice. The next APPC wave should include questions on whether patients discuss federal guidance with their providers to quantify this mediation effect.