Amid fueling tensions between the U.S. and the World Health Organization (WHO) — a specialized agency of perhaps the world’s most powerful organization — the 45th American president had called for an abrupt halt to funding.
The consequential move paved the way for termination between the U.S. and the WHO, a decision that axed the country’s stance as the largest donor, placing the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan as the only top contributors, according to Pew Research Center.
In a new survey released by Pew Research Center, researchers studied Americans’ standpoints regarding the decision to split between the U.S. and the WHO.
In the findings, the Pew Research team showed that right-leaning supporters were more likely to loathe the WHO’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, compared to left-leaning advocates.
“Just 46% of Americans give the WHO positive marks on its coronavirus response, though views of how well the organization has dealt with the outbreak are sharply divided along partisan lines,” the Pew Research team stated in their findings.
“Whereas 62% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say the organization has done at least a good job in handling the pandemic, only 28% of Republicans and GOP leaners say the same.”
Conservative Republicans are less likely to trust information arising from the WHO, compared to Liberal Democrats, the study also found.
People in young adulthood and those with higher educational attainment are more likely to trust information supplied by WHO, however, distaste for information originating from the EU and the Chinese government may have yielded less favorable views of the WHO for both left and right-leaning respondents.
Pew Research Center is a US-based nonpartisan think tank devoted to public opinion polling, demographic analysis, and social science research.
