As Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continues his overhaul of federal healthcare agencies and injects his long-running vaccine skepticism into official U.S. policy, a new poll finds that most Americans disapprove of Kennedy’s job performance and his handling of the vaccine issue.
Four in 10 people say they strongly disapprove of the job Kennedy is doing and another 19% say they somewhat disapprove. By comparison, 11% say they strongly approve of the way Kennedy is leading HHS and 29% somewhat approve.
On vaccine policy, 62% disapprove, including 40% who do so strongly, while 37% approve.
Opinions about Kennedy are split along partisan lines, with 74% of Republicans backing how the HHS secretary is handling his job versus 35% of independents and 13% of Democrats.
Kennedy has framed his mission as one of rebuilding trust in America’s public health administration, but the poll finds a notable erosion in trust, at least when it comes to vaccine information. Just 35% say they have a “great deal” or a “fair amount” of trust in Kennedy to provide reliable information on vaccines and only half of U.S. adults say they trust the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the same issue. That’s down from 57% in July and 63% in September 2024.
The poll results are based on a nationally representative sample of 1,334 U.S. adults surveyed from September 23 to 29. The margin of sampling error for the full sample is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Read more about the poll at KFF.
