As new media proliferate and the public's trust and engagement in science are influenced by industry involvement in academic research, an interdisciplinary workshop provides some recommendations to enhance science communication.

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BackgroundTo assess the Knowledge, Attitudes and Practice (KAP) amongst the general community regarding type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) in rural Bangladesh.MethodsData was collected using cluster random sampling from 3104 adults residing in a rural district in Bangladesh. Participants underwent a KAP questionnaire survey regarding assessing diabetes, socio-demographic and medical history. Descriptive, Chi-square and regression analyses were performed.ResultsParticipants were aged between 30 and 89 years (M  = 51, SD  = 11.8) and 65.5% were female. The prevalence of diabetes was found to be 8.3%. The majority (93%) reported to have heard of diabetes, yet only 4% knew what a glucose tolerance test was. Only 50% reported that they knew physical inactivity was a risk factor. Age, gender, level of education and socio-economic status (SES) were significantly associated with KAP. A lower proportion (41%) of older participants (aged ≥65 years) reported that they knew that dietary modifications assist in diabetes control compared to those aged less than 35 years (69%), p<0.001. Males (β  = 0.393, 95% CI = 0.142–0.643), and any level of education compared to no schooling (β  = 0.726, 95% CI = 0.596, 0.857) reported significantly more knowledge, after multivariate adjustments for covariates. Participants aged under 35 years, (odds ratio (OR)  = 1.73, 95% CI  = 1.22–2.43) had significantly higher positive attitudes towards treatments of diabetes compared to those aged ≥65 years. Of the 99 people with known diabetes, more than 50% (n = 52) never had their blood sugar levels checked since diagnosis.ConclusionsKnowledge of diabetes and its risk factors is very limited in rural Bangladesh, even in persons diagnosed with type 2 DM. The development of public health programmes to increase knowledge of diabetes and its complications is required to assist people living in rural Bangladesh to control and management of diabetes.

This research examined why the public may be less supportive of stem cell research when conducted in a private compared to public research context. A representative sample (n = 403) of Australians who were exposed to information relating to privately funded scientists were significantly less likely to approve of stem cell research than those who were presented with a scenario of scientists working within a publicly funded University (n = 401) and a control condition (n = 404). Mediation analyses revealed that the decrease in approval was primarily associated with the tendency of privately funded scientists to be trusted less than their publicly funded counterparts. Public trust in University scientists was also found to be higher than that of private scientists because publicly funded scientists were perceived to be motivated more by benevolence, and more likely to produce benefits that will be accessible to the public. While private scientists were perceived to be more self interested than public scientists, perceived self interest did not explain the decrease in trust. There were also no significant differences across research contexts for the perceived competence of scientists or the likelihood that stem cell research would result in cures for diseases. The implications of these results are discussed in relation to the possible decrease in public trust that may occur alongside the increasing privatization of academic enquiry, and particularly controversial scientific research.

Trust may be important in shaping public attitudes to genetics and intentions to participate in genomics research and big data initiatives. As such, we examined trust in data sharing among the general public. A cross-sectional online survey collected responses from representative publics in the USA, Canada, UK and Australia (n = 8967). Participants were most likely to trust their medical doctor and less likely to trust other entities named. Company researchers were least likely to be trusted. Low, Variable and High Trust classes were defined using latent class analysis. Members of the High Trust class were more likely to be under 50 years, male, with children, hold religious beliefs, have personal experience of genetics and be from the USA. They were most likely to be willing to donate their genomic and health data for clinical and research uses. The Low Trust class were less reassured than other respondents by laws preventing exploitation of donated information. Variation in trust, its relation to areas of concern about the use of genomic data and potential of legislation are considered. These findings have relevance for efforts to expand genomic medicine and data sharing beyond those with personal experience of genetics or research participants.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s00439-019-02062-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.