Truth and Trust Project
Building Trust Between Ordinary Citizens and Public Health
The Truth and Trust Project at Braver Angels is an effort to build trust, foster respect, and bridge divides among people who have different views on pandemic public health policies, including those implemented for Covid and those under consideration for future outbreaks.
The project brings together a diverse group of Americans, from ordinary citizens to medical and science professionals, and including people with differing views.
Goals
- To better understand the experiences and beliefs of people who have differing perspectives on pandemic public health policies.
- To seek out areas of common ground in addition to acknowledging and respecting differences.
- To review objective evidence and gain insights that might help to build trust and foster respect among people who differ on pandemic policies.
- To learn something that might be helpful in our communities and the nation toward reconciling the divisions over Covid policies, and preparing for the inevitable next pandemic.
Featured Conversations
Playlist
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Three pilot workshops were convened with equal numbers of supporters and questioners/critics about the public health response in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Tennessee (read more). A series of exercises helped participants feel heard, clarify areas of both disagreement and common concern, and strengthen relationships.
Participants (a) explored common stereotypes about their respective views while identifying kernels of truth along with areas where corrections were needed; (b) used storytelling to describe their experiences during the pandemic; and (c) developed questions for better mutual understanding.Â
Our workshop design is under review and we are interested in hearing from anyone who would like to put on a workshop locally.
Resources
Learn More about
Braver Angels
and get connected
Sign the Road
to Wisdom Pledge
Dr. Francis Collins’ book
American Public Health Association Abstract
to bridge the Covid divide
People
Francis Collins
Founding co-investigator,
Former director of National Institutes of Health
Wilk Wilkinson
Founding co-investigator,
Founder and host of Derate the Hate Podcast
This project began with an unlikely pair: Francis Collins is a scientist who was at the helm of the federal government’s response to the Covid pandemic; Wilk Wilkinson is an everyday American from rural Minnesota who became concerned about many of the policies that Collins helped to implement. Through this project Wilk and Francis became friends and fellow Braver Angels members on a mission to bridge divides.
Along the way, more Americans who differ with each other on Covid but share a commitment to working together, joined to help lead the project. Overall, the people who work on this project are balanced between people who have been mostly skeptical of the government’s response to the Covid pandemic and those who have been mostly supportive.
Meet the Workshop Team
Lincoln is an arborist and small business owner in central Vermont. Originally from western North Carolina, he is a devoted husband, and proud father of three. Lincoln is the Vermont state coordinator for Braver Angels, and on the leadership team for Braver Angels’ We the People’s Project. In his work with Braver Angels, he has helped lead the national Truth and Trust Project towards reconciling our social and political divides around the COVID experience.
Leslie is a retired psychiatrist who also chaired a hospital ethics committee for over 10 years. She has been active in Braver Angels since 2017, and has worked as an alliance chair, debate chair, debate whip, moderator, organizer and Zoom manager. She has a particular interest in making the relationship between public health workers and their communities more productive and satisfying for both parties.
Beth is a neurology sleep physician and science communicator who recently relocated from Nashville, Tennessee to Hartford, Vermont. Within Braver Angels, she has been active since 2017, serves as a moderator, workshop designer, and debate chair. She enjoys applying these skills to this initiative to improve foster trust in science, medicine, and public health. Beth was featured in the Braver Angels article, Confronting our COVID Condescension, written by Mónica Guzmán.
Edward is active member and past chair, Ethics, American Public Health Association, and is retired from the School of Medicine, University of Virginia, with a career in health education/public health/public policy from early years of the HIV/AIDS pandemic through the Covid pandemic (that, he says, are not entirely dis-similar). About 70 years ago, he was born and raised in a working class rural community of Virginia, and except for a few years, always lived in rural working class communities where he observes and advocates to end rural health disparities and injustices, including with a wide variety of public health strategies, with both ‘Red’ leaning and ‘Blue’ leaning administrations. He is trained in religious ethics, clinical ethics and public health ethics.
Travis has been an active leader in Braver Angels since 2021, serving as the New Hampshire State Coordinator and as an Ambassador during that time. With a libertarian philosophy and an engineering background in the health technology field, he was a critic of the government’s response to the pandemic from the very beginning. As an avid critic of public health (and the government generally), he joined the Truth and Trust Project to lend his voice to the COVID conversation in an attempt to depolarize, find common ground, and move forward with a shared truth.