My name is Veronica Valencia Gonzalez, I am a 5th year doctoral student in the Social Ecology PhD program and I had the honor of being a 2020-2021 Newkirk Fellow with the Research Justice Shop. As a Newkirk Fellow with the Research Justice Shop, I had the opportunity to collaborate with Chengyuan Huang, a Newkirk fellow and UCI PhD Student from the Drama Department, on the COVID-19 stories research project. The project brought folks from different disciplinary backgrounds to work together to collect the stories of the experiences of essential workers during the pandemic. The experience turned out to be rewarding, enriching, and enlightening. We heard and documented stories which highlighted workers’ creativity and altruism, but we also heard about skepticism and distrust. As a researcher, among the most striking and surprising moments were the instances when participants mentioned wariness of the COVID vaccines or their reservations over COVID guidances provided by scientists. However, upon further investigation I learned that distrust of scientists and scientific findings was more common than I had previously thought.
According to a 2019 poll by the Pew Research Center, only 35% of American adults said they had a great deal of trust in scientists. The same article described how research misconduct is seen as a big problem; this is especially so among Black (71%) and Hispanic (63%) adults when compared to whites (43%) (Funk et al., 2019). That distrust shouldn’t be surprising if one considers the grievous ethical miscarriages that Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) folks have faced in the name of science (e.g., Tuskegee syphilis study, birth control pill testing in Puerto Rico, etc.) (Amramova, January 21, 2019). Despite the lack of solid trust in scientists, most American adults (54%) believe that the public should play an essential role in guiding policy decisions on scientific issues. As scientists and researchers we must ask ourselves: How can we increase public trust and involve the public in science? How can we help eliminate the distrust among Americans? Can involving the public in research processes help ameliorate the distrust in scientific research findings and related policy recommendations? How do we involve the public in our research?
Community-engaged research is a good step towards gaining community trust and having the community involved in science. In community-engaged research, research becomes a collaborative endeavor between researchers and community members. In these community-engaged projects, the goals and processes for the project are developed collaboratively through continued communication between the researchers and community members. In this way, community members play an active role in shaping the goals and processes of the research project. And why shouldn’t the public be involved and have a say in the research, especially when that research is being funded with federal money?
According to the National Science Foundation, in 2019, the federal obligation for basic and applied research was $81.1 billion (Pece, 2021. The figure excludes federal money utilized to fund experimental development which totaled $61.3 billion.). That number is preliminary projected at $85,262 million for the year 2020 (Pece, 2021). Researchers utilizing public funds should be required,at the very least, to make the research accessible to the public and to provide opportunities for public participation. Community-engaged research meets these goals. However, I do not believe this is enough.
The public should be empowered to play a role in deciding what type of research and projects should be prioritized for federal funding. The funding could be apportioned similarly to how congressional seats are apportioned based on population counts using census data (Wang, Jin, & Levitt, 2021). In this manner, each congressional district would be allotted research money to be awarded for research projects selected by community members who live (and possibly work) in the district. Researchers would have an opportunity to present their research projects based on the call set out by the community members. In this way, the community members would decide the specific issues they would like to see addressed. In the event that there are multiple issues the money can be divided amongst issues. Then researchers would be required to tailor their research projects and proposals to the particular needs of the communities where they apply for funding. Research projects selected for funding would be more focused on community members’ specific needs, and not necessarily the interests of researchers or what funding agencies believe is more beneficial for society. Scientists and researchers then have more incentive to ensure that their research is accessible to community members because they are required to convince community members of their project’s in order to gain the public’s support for the research being proposed. It would also require that researchers more actively communicate with the general public and to listen to community members in order to understand the needs of the community. Ultimately, this may not be the ultimate solution that restores the public’s faith in science. However, given the lack of public trust and understanding of scientific research, we must try something different. We need to connect with the public and stop living in our scientific silos, this is especially the case when public funds are enabling the research.
In closing I ask researchers and scientists to consider what role (if any) the public and community plays in their work and how this might impact the trust the public has in science. What are you doing to include the voices of community members? Is there more you can do to include community members in your work? What are you doing to ensure that the public can trust the work of science? Is there more you can do to increase the public’s trust in the work of scientists and researchers?
Bibliography
Amramova, N. (2019, January 22). Unethical experiments’ painful contributions to today’s medicine. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/09/health/unethical-experiments/index.html.
Balls-Berry JE, Acosta-Pérez E. The Use of Community Engaged Research Principles to Improve Health: Community Academic Partnerships for Research. P R Health Sci J. 2017;36(2):84-85.
Funk, C., Hefferon, M., Kennedy, B., & Johnson, C. (2019). Trust and mistrust in Americans’ views of scientific experts. Pew Research Center, 2.
Pece, C. (2021, April 21). Federal R&D Obligations Increased 10% in 2019; Largest Year-to-Year Change since 2009. NSF. https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf21328.
Wang, H. L., Jin, C. H., & Levitt, Z. (2021, April 26). Here’s How The 1st 2020 Census Results Changed Electoral College, House Seats. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2021/04/26/983082132/census-to-release-1st-results-that-shift-electoral-college-house-seats.
Bio: Veronica Valencia Gonzalez, is a PhD student in the Social Ecology program at the University of California, Irvine. Veronica was a 2020-2021 Newkirk Fellow. You can reach Veronica through email at veronivg@uci.edu. For more information regarding the Research Justice Shop please visit the website or contact researchjustice@uci.edu.
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