Science1 publisher3 min readPublished
People in 13 countries rank being listened to among the top five things that would move them
An Edelman Trust Institute and Yale poll found that people rank a doctor's listening and patience alongside the explaining of risks. It landed in the same week Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is due to keynote the group he chaired until December 2024.
The Scientist · Science desk
What happened
- Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will deliver the keynote address at a Children's Health Defense conference at the Grand Hyatt Washington on Thursday, according to STAT.
- He joined the group in 2015 and chaired it until December 2024, earning a six-figure salary while helping file dozens of lawsuits targeting state-level vaccine policies, his financial disclosures show.
- The Edelman Trust Institute and the Yale School of Public Health polled people across 13 countries on what would be important to them if a medical expert wanted them to follow a recommendation they doubted.
- In an American Academy of Pediatrics survey of about 2,600 pediatricians, 40 percent said children in their care had skipped appointments over the last 12 months because of fears about immigration status.
- Dallas health department clinics gave 50 percent fewer back-to-school vaccinations to Hispanic children in August 2025 than they did in August 2024.
Compiled by The ScientistSomething wrong?How this is made
Why it matters
- constraint Because 38 percent of pediatricians could not say whether immigration was the reason, the survey can only bound how many doctors noticed absences; it does not give a rate of missed care among children.
- capability If people weight being heard as heavily as being informed, consultation behaviour is the part a practice can change without a communications budget, and the 20-minute primary care visit sets its ceiling.
- contradiction Kennedy's January 2025 promise to senators and his return to the CHD stage point in different directions, and clinicians fielding vaccine questions this week have to work with both.
- precedent With CHD leaders including Mary Holland holding positions inside HHS, the group's positions reach vaccine policy through personnel as well as through a conference stage.
Two of the five answers people most often called critically or very important describe how the conversation goes: listening "to make sure they understand me and my life situation," and welcoming doubts and addressing them "patiently and without judgment" [10]. Explaining risks and benefits and using language patients can understand also made the list [10]. The poll measures what people say would move them.
The limit on doing any of it is the appointment. Primary care doctors typically get just 20 minutes with a patient [11]. A pediatrician in Florida told the public broadcaster WLRN: "What's happening now is kind of like being a pilot, and every passenger on the plane wants to know what every button on the console does" [12]. The CEOs of the Greenwall and Dana foundations wrote that "Messaging can't substitute for the relational infrastructure needed for building and sustaining trust" [13].
Thirty-eight percent of the roughly 2,600 respondents to the pediatrician survey said they were not sure whether immigration played a role in missed appointments, which the authors wrote was "suggesting an underestimation of the families affected" [15]. Subtract that group and the 40 percent, and 22 percent of respondents are left, about 570 doctors, whose answers rule immigration out [20][21]. The unit counted is the physician, not the child.
The Dallas figure is administrative. Doses recorded in one city's public clinic system in a single month do not separate children who went unvaccinated from children vaccinated at a pharmacy or a private practice. STAT reports that no-show rates are rising across the country and that the number of vaccines given to immigrant populations has declined [17].
Monday's Morning Rounds from STAT was headlined "Businesses can now apply for NIH funding" [18], and the newsletter's own preview of its items lists the trust poll, a story on heart health in space and a number on immigration and children's health [19]. The newsletter did not describe the eligibility change, the programs covered or the effective date.
Children's Health Defense questions the efficacy and safety of childhood vaccines [8]. Kennedy took leave from the group during his campaign for the presidency and severed ties permanently shortly before Trump took office [23]. "We couldn't be more excited to welcome our founder back to the CHD stage," the nonprofit said in an email announcing him as a speaker [3]. STAT reports that Thursday will be his first public embrace of the group since he took the helm of HHS [4]. At his confirmation hearings, Sen. Bernie Sanders pointed to images of "Unvaxxed, Unafraid" onesies the group sold and asked several times, "Are you supportive of these onesies?" [5] "I am supportive of vaccines," Kennedy responded, adding that he had "no power" over the nonprofit [6].
What to watch
- Whether NIH or HHS publishes the eligibility change behind Monday's headline, with the programs covered and an effective date.
- Whether the American Academy of Pediatrics repeats the survey against patient-level appointment records, which would turn a share of doctors into a rate of missed visits.
- Whether Kennedy's Thursday remarks include any vaccine recommendation, and how it sits with the assurance he gave senators in January 2025.