“When you grow up you will be a conservative.”.
My father often says this to me, an almost 30-year-old liberal, academic researcher, living in a blue state on the East Coast. This statement has always confused me, especially as my father has always encouraged me to be a strong, independent thinker who challenges the status quo. When I was 18, he proudly sent me off from Michigan to a prestigious, New England liberal arts college. Then he has watched with genuine surprise as I increasingly moved away from his conservative outlook. I had become his worst fear, a liberal.
This dynamic has been challenging to navigate, especially as I become more established in the field of public health. How do I bridge the disconnect between my personal and professional experience. And if I can’t convince my family to trust my public health expertise, how can I expect the public to?
I grew up in a small, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, Midwestern town, the first in my family to go to college out of state. My extended family is tightly knit. Thanksgiving on my father’s side is hosted at the summer camp my aunt and uncle are caretakers for because 100 family members attend. An industrial kitchen is necessary to cook six turkeys. When we get together, we are loud, opinionated, and steadfast.
My family members are not uneducated, heartless bigots and I am not a woke, feminist, liberal snowflake. But misinformation, fearmongering, and distrust in the government have pitted us against each other, leading to awkward family dinners and sometimes strained relationships. This is not unique to my family. Since the 1980s, hate for the opposing party has exceeded love for own party. How did we get here? And where can we go? How as scientists and public health experts can we build back trust? And is this our ethical responsibility?
I believe the answer lies in having open and candid conversations with our loved ones, and I am starting with my father.
Despite our competing political ideologies, we are very close. I respect him deeply and value his perspective. We talk on the phone a few times a week, most of our conversations centering around our shared love of sports. I cannot begin to count the number of hours we spent in his old Ford Explorer, driving across Canada and the Midwest to ice hockey tournaments during my childhood. The old Ford had about 300,000 miles before it finally kicked the can. That car held a lot of memories: pregame pep-talks, doing homework in the backseat, and naps with the faint sound of Rush Limbaugh in the background.
I was introduced to law and politics by my father at a young age. He was finishing law school when I was a toddler and often drew bedtime stories from his constitutional law textbook, so he could do his homework and spend time with me. Today, my father and I often have productive, well-spirited, and respectful political debates; much to the chagrin of my mother who hates conflict. Yet—I still have a sense that my father doesn’t fully trust me. When I voice concerns about the consequences of Donald Trump’s executive orders slashing research funding, that affects me and my job, he brushes off my worry, saying there “must be a plan”.
I have dedicated my life to science and am now pursuing a doctorate in public health. My father relies on the guidance of Fox News anchors to provide him with “evidence-based’ information on public health programs and policy. He is not alone, Americans’ trust in scientists has declined by 14 points since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is why I believe it’s my responsibility as a scientist, public health leader, and daughter to keep our lines of communication open.
So much of our messaging as liberals and public health leaders has been depleted by calling people ignorant or uneducated, instead of meeting people where they are and trying to understand their needs, priorities, and values. It was evident by the 2024 presidential election, where over 76 million Americans voted for Donald J. Trump, that the left is out of touch with their constituents. The nomination of RFK Jr. as the secretary of the Department of Health and Human services has further amplified that the public is skeptical of my chosen profession, our scientific methods, and the evidence we produce.
More now, than ever, we must leave our ivory towers and rebuild trust with family members and communities who are removed from our world. Reaching out is especially urgent because polarization is a risk factor for disease and mortality. Polarization obstructs implementation of strategies to promote health and boosts mistrust and misinformation. It is our duty as public health leaders to protect and promote health. To achieve this, we need to stop using language that is elitist and offensive.
We must extend the olive branch first. We must listen. We must admit that some of our ideas are wrong. We must highlight that we are more alike than different. And we must build back trust, starting with our family members. We need to make science and public health more approachable. We should be focused on making our messages clear to the people we want to reach. That’s where our effort should go, rather than showing off at prestigious academic conferences. I believe we have lost sight of our mission, but all hope is not lost.
So, Dad, if you’ve read this far, I want to say that while we may not always agree, I am proud of us for not steering away from the hard conversations. I am proud of us for hearing each other out and not screaming over one another to get our point across. If we keep loving one another, listening, and learning—and if other politically divided families can do the same—we can start to build back trust in science and public health.
