Do you trust your doctor? Americans rank the trustworthiness of these 15 professions

The global public has become wary of professionals across every industry, as the last few years have presented countless obstacles. 

Ipsos, a multinational market research and consulting firm, surveyed 28 countries, asking people to assess how trustworthy different professions are. Sentiments have shifted in the wake of the pandemic: this year, for example, doctors fell globally by six points while scientists have fallen by four, following a spike in their scores in 2021.

Although industries may have placed public trust on the back burner in order to manage a recruitment and retention crisis, it's critical they gain back their community's trust, says Sarah Feldman, a data journalist at Ipsos. She hopes this data reveals where industries stand with the public two years into the pandemic. 

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"All these professions service and interact with the public in some way, supporting how economies and countries function," says Feldman. "It's important to see where these professions live in the public's imagination. Understanding who holds the public's trust provides industries an idea of where they stand with the public." 

Ipsos also looked at how perceptions varied across countries, with the U.S. putting more trust in members of the armed forces and clergy than the global average. Feldman points out that relative to other countries surveyed, Americans have higher levels of patriotic sentiment and religiosity, especially higher-income respondents and people in the South and Midwest. 

Here is Ipsos' ranking of 15 professionals in the U.S., based on the percentage of Americans who deemed them trustworthy.