Who Do Malaysians Trust in a Health Crisis? New Survey Maps the Messengers Behind Vaccine Confidence

MALAYSIA, 12 OCTOBER 2026 —

A new study published in PLOS Global Public Health reveals that formal sources, specifically healthcare workers and scientists, remain the most trusted messengers of health information across all ethnic groups in Malaysia, with predicted reliability probabilities exceeding 80 percent for most demographics.

The investigation emerged from the "infodemic" of the pandemic, a period characterized by an unprecedented flood of contradictory advice and misinformation. In this environment, the identity of the messenger became as consequential as the message itself. The research team sought to determine whether the messenger made a difference in public health outcomes.

They examined perceived reliability across seven distinct sources: three formal sources, including healthcare workers, scientists, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and four informal sources, comprising religious leaders, community leaders, interpersonal sources such as family and friends, and social media influencers. This taxonomy captured the full spectrum of voices competing for public attention, from clinicians to content creators.

Malaysia served as an ideal setting for this analysis due to its ethnically diverse population, which includes Malays, Chinese, Indians, and Indigenous groups. Each group possesses distinct cultural frameworks, historical relationships with state institutions, and patterns of media consumption. The study utilized logistic regression to model binary outcomes, specifically whether respondents perceived a source as reliable. The researchers then estimated adjusted predicted probabilities to translate statistical coefficients into intuitive percentages.

For instance, the analysis could determine the likelihood that a Malay respondent with secondary education would rate a scientist as trustworthy. By stratifying these estimates across ethnic groups, education levels, and age brackets, the study revealed patterns that a single national average would have concealed.

The primary finding indicates that formal sources consistently emerged as the most reliable messengers. Healthcare workers and scientists commanded particularly high confidence, with predicted probabilities of being perceived as reliable reaching 80 percent or higher among most groups. This suggests that even amid a noisy information environment, clinical and scientific communities retained a reservoir of public trust unmatched by other categories.

Together with community leaders, these formal sources were identified as the main influences on vaccination intention, indicating that trust in the messenger directly translated into willingness to accept vaccines. For public health authorities, this confirms that investment in credible, professional communication channels yields measurable dividends during crises.

However, the study highlights significant nuances and exceptions. Indigenous groups in Malaysia, who on average exhibit lower educational attainment and are older than the national population, showed somewhat lower predicted probabilities of perceiving healthcare workers and scientists as reliable, at 78 percent or below. This modest but meaningful gap identifies a population where official health communication channels may not penetrate as effectively.

The researchers suggest this reduced confidence is intertwined with structural factors, including different historical experiences with institutions, varying levels of health literacy, and distinct everyday information ecologies. Strategies treating the population as homogeneous risk leaving these vulnerable groups behind.

Ethnic differences also surfaced in attitudes toward NGOs. Chinese and Indian respondents exhibited notably higher predicted probabilities of perceiving NGOs as reliable, averaging approximately 80 percent and 75 percent respectively. Among Malays and Indigenous groups, these figures were lower, hovering at roughly 65 to 70 percent. This divergence reflects the varied institutional landscapes of Malaysian civil society, where different organisations have different histories of engagement with particular communities.

Since NGOs often serve as intermediaries between official authorities and hard-to-reach populations, their effectiveness depends on being trusted. The study suggests that NGOs cannot be deployed as a uniform national asset; their communicative leverage is community-specific and must be mapped before mobilization.

The most sociologically intriguing findings concern community leaders, an informal source whose perceived reliability behaved in unexpected ways. At the lowest education level and youngest age group, predicted probabilities of trusting community leaders were moderate across all ethnicities, ranging from 45 to 55 percent. From this baseline, trajectories diverged sharply. Among Malay and Indigenous respondents, trust in community leaders remained relatively stable across higher education levels and older age groups.

In contrast, among Chinese and Indian respondents, trust generally declined as education and age increased. This indicates that the social gradient of trust in local, informal authority runs in opposite directions for different communities. For younger, less-educated citizens of all backgrounds, community leaders occupy a middle ground of credibility, making them potential bridges between official messaging and communities that formal institutions struggle to reach.

The authors conclude that healthcare workers and scientists should remain central to health communication strategies, while NGOs and community leaders play complementary roles. They describe this as a multi-messenger approach, an architecture where different trusted voices reinforce one another rather than compete. This redundancy ensures that if a single channel fails due to scepticism or inaccessibility, alternative channels can carry the message.

The broader significance extends to future public health responses, demonstrating that perceived reliability is a mosaic varying by ethnicity, education, and age. Communication strategies calibrated to the median citizen will systematically underserve the tails of the distribution, which often correspond to populations with the greatest health vulnerabilities. The study provides a methodological template for measuring trust in specific messenger categories and modelling their impact on public health outcomes.

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