ArticleScientific reports2026
Increasing trust in science through a "Do Your Own Research" intervention.
Article in Scientific reports, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
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.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.