As fears around coronavirus sweep the globe, we are all confronted with a vital question: who to turn to for information and how much we trust that information.

Last year, the Policy Lab ran a representative survey of 1,000 Australians – as part of the Australian Cooperative Election Survey – to look at this very question. This research memo reports the findings from that survey.

In this survey, researchers asked where people turn to get information in two areas: 1) health information and 2) general information.

They followed that up with questions about how much respondents trusted the sources they most frequently turned to.

The researchers found very different patterns depending on what sort of information people are seeking out. As it relates to health information – and given escalating attacks on experts that have occurred in recent years – the survey presents a rare piece of good news on the role experts can play in confronting health crises like coronavirus.